Deborah Solomon to Mary Gordon: “Do you care that you’ve never won a Pulitzer Prize or, for that matter, the Nobel Prize in Literature?”
Month / August 2007
This Sunday’s LATBR
There’s lots of good stuff in this week’s Los Angeles Times Book Review, including Good Man Park on Spook Country, which he compares to William Gaddis’s The Recognitions, a full-fledged geek-centric mystery column from Sarah, and Emily Barton on Mata Hari.
Oh, and there’s some other Ed you might know reviewing Matt Ruff’s Bad Monkeys.
BSS #126: Alternative Press Expo 2007, Part Three
[This is the last of the three APE 2007 podcasts. All three podcasts will eventually be available on the main Segundo page. But for the moment, here are temporary links to Part One and Part Two]
CONDITION OF MR. SEGUNDO: Searching for surgical uses involving his tequila bottle.
GUESTS: Helen Parson, Ruben Fernandez, Bud Burgy, Mike Hampton, Suzanne Kleid, Shannon O’Leary, Jennifer Joseph, Brian Colma, an unqualified “lowly human,” various representatives of Kaiju Big Battel, John Schuler and William Binderup, Jose Lopez, Liz Baillie, Bob Self, Richard Ruane and Tim Trosky, Mikhaela Reid, Stephanie McMillan, Matt Bors, Masheka Wood, Robert Steven Rhine and Hollie Stevens, Corwin Gibson, Matt Bernier, Mel Smith and Steve Oliff
SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The nutritional qualities of flavored ghosts, the trouble with comic book names, telemarketing poets, penny aphorisms, a search for a mean-spirited fan who may live in Wisconsin, marital modeling and zombies, a comparative discussion between zombies and corpses, pet noir anthologies, conducting poetry discussion at a comic book convention, how to make cartoons more respectable, using aggression for control of the universe, how to exploit and make money out of kaiju monsters, getting people hooked on poop jokes, conflict that attracts people, character design for Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, working on secret projects for Google, how to riff on the sacrosanct world of Degrassi High, Gris Grimly, a pair of books by a pair of sisters, shy guys, moms and drugs, the distinct lack of attitude within Cartoonists with Attitude, love and anger, on having sharp opinions without being angry, the Reese’s peanut butter cup concoction of girls and corpses, clown porn and Mensa, unexpected enthusiasms for the Orange County Sheriff, Nacho Libre vs. luche libre, Jack Black, trying to eat a hot dog and selling comics at the same time, excluding the important sexual elements of a classic myth, how Bob Burden is giving the Gumby crew ulcers, on Mel Smith being the Henry Kissinger of Gumby, and Paul Reubens and Gumby.
EXCERPT FROM SHOW:
Correspondent: You seem very pleasant for someone who has attitude.
Reid: We all!
Correspondent: And someone else speaks for you here.
Bors: Nah, I’m pleasant in person. I don’t know. Uh I’m just chilling at a convention.
Reid: His strip is called Slut of Guantanamo Bay. He’s not that pleasant!
Correspondent: But he’s very pleasant about it right here.
Listen: Play in new window | Download
The Internet as Self-Correcting Cultural Safeguard?
The Mirror: “They have given their fans the chance to vote for where they would play next on their world tour. And now a massive internet campaign could mean the Spice Girls end up performing… in war-torn Iraq.”
Roundup
- It is very possible that Kate Coe has penned the Theresa Duncan article to end all Theresa Duncan articles. Beyond the careful reporting, let us consider the important role of hyperlinks in the online version of this article. Had this been merely a print piece, would these references have been half as helpful? The hyperlink is here to stay. Embrace it. (via Michelle Richmond)
- Tod Goldberg lays down his rules: “I don’t want to read your self-published novel. Ever. If you’re reading this and thinking, Hey, I see Tod sometimes reviews books places, I wonder if he’d like to review my book? The answer is that I’d rather sit through I Know Who Killed Me covered in fire ants.”
- So folks, do you have Asperger’s? Who needs some perfunctory summation from an psychological rube when the Web can play this kind of ignoble Asperger’s card for you? Apparently, I’m an “average female scientist.” Which presumably means that I’ll need to work twice as hard to prove that I’m capable, because the world seems to consider me more of a stewardess who should be popping out kids from her uterus than a thinker. (via the Valve)
- Charles Simic has been named the new U.S. poet laureate. But wait a minute, Simic was born in Yugoslavia! What the hell’s going on? I thought our government specialized in celebrating and maintaining a purebred America! This is hypocrisy! The last thing America needs is one of these goddam Yugoslavians taking away American cultural thunder. Why not simply give the title to a Madison Avenue copywriter? “Born in fire, blown by mouth and cut by hand with heart.” Sheer poetry that keeps this nation going!
- After reading Julie Phillips’s James Triptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, I have many conclusions. But the one that sticks out the most (which indeed I still possessed even before picking up the Phillips book): Ursula K. Le Guin, hubba hubba! Yowzahs! Rowr! Considerable correspondence between Sheldon and various science fiction writers can be found within the book. But it is Le Guin’s volleys, laden with wit, intelligence, and an irresistable wordplay, that made me swoon. Letter writing may very well be a dying art — something abdicated to the “dats cool” one-sentence truncations of contemporary email. Because of this, I think it’s high time to remind readers that Le Guin is still around and still pumping out interesting books. It’s also high time to remind all emailers to up their game! (More recent news on the literary merits of email here.)
- Terry Teachout vs. Dan Green.
- Can I say again just how saddened I am to see Janet Maslin, who was once a sharp film critic, offering such asinine book reviews like this? One would think that after a few years of book reviewing, Maslin would understand that there are these things called legal clearances which often affect decisions in historical fiction and that the critic has to be very careful when dwelling upon authorial intention. But, no, this review saddens me so much with its idiocy that I must walk away, head hunkered down, hoping that the Janet Maslin I read in the ’90’s will return. For the love of letters, Gray Lady, get Maslin away from books and back into the movie theaters, pronto!
- The funny side of Faulkner. (via Maud)
- I have not yet written about Stephen Fry’s incredibly fun new book, The Ode Less Travelled, which I cracked open the other day. But see what Levi has to say about it.
- Derik is now running some experiments on music in comics.
- Also, I missed this a few weeks ago, but this Ralph Ellison overview is worth a look.