Author / Edward Champion
Support Your Local Indie Bookstores
Los Angeles Times: “This is the paradox of modern bookselling. Even in an entertainment-saturated age, people still buy books. But the casual reader has many other places to get bestsellers and topical books, from warehouse stores to the mall. Meanwhile, book nuts — the ones who simply must buy several volumes a week — are lured online. Few businesses can survive that lose customers from both ends of the spectrum.”
Never Underestimate the Humorlessness of the Internet Public
John Sutherland: “The piece was, I believed, mildly sarcastic. YouTubers were not amused. For a day or two, I was YouTube-famous. The contents of their video responses – which at the time, could all be summoned instantaneously from the Wikipedia entry – are bruisingly abusive. ‘Die! You asshole!’ rants one paunchy YouTuber, jowls quivering with homicidal rage. ‘Your head is so far up your arse you can see your tonsils,’ offers another, with a show of that less-than-Wildean wit for which YouTube is justly famous. (They seem for some reason to be obsessed with the rectal tube.)”
More Butler Interview Excerpts
Again, when I tell you that you must read Jack Butler’s Jujitsu for Christ, and when I point out that the Rake ain’t lying when he says “everyone should go out and buy a copy of Jack Butler’s Jujitsu for Christ,” this is a bona-fide hot reading tip for you — nay, an entreaty!* That is, if you give at least ten good goddams about literature! Butler’s work is criminally neglected by the cool kids. (I’m looking at you too, Good Man Park!) But what I’m thinking is that some of us Butler boosters might be able to restore the good man’s graces into the echelons that they belong.
With this in mind, you can read a few more excerpts from the aforementioned Butler interview, courtesy of Jeff Bryant and Prof Fury!
* And really I have Tangerine Muumuu to thank for all this, since she was the one who got the book in my hands. Inexplicably, Jack Butler’s work is about as impossible to find as a Saturday Night parking spot in San Francisco. As soon as I track down another copy, she’s getting one.
Roundup
- From 1934 to 1949, the Philly Inquirer published “complete illustrated novels” in its Sunday book review section. You’d be hard-pressed to find even the most secure and well-funded Sunday supplements doing anything like this today. (via Books, Inq.)
- Primo Levi’s “A Tranquil Star.”
- Keith Gessen asks, “Where is Martin Amis heading next?”
- Behold: New Critics.
- Obviously, Kim Bofo has never read Faulkner. The “clever literary thing” is something known as eye dialect, designed to convey cadences in phonetic terms. It is not intended to be “clever,” nor is it intended to spawn anti-intellectual hostility from across the big pond. More information can be found here and here.
- Joyce and Beckett play golf. (via Fimoculous)
- The 11 Least Intimidating Movie Villains. (via Quiddity)
- Poor Mike Judge. Fox doesn’t deserve him.