Canadian Press: “A woman who used fondue fuel to set her boyfriend’s penis on fire will spend the holidays in jail.”
Author / Edward Champion
Sylvester Stallone KOs Sam Tanenhaus
Sure, you could ask Sam Tanenhaus your questions and watch him ignore any query even remotely critical of the NYTBR. (Tanenhaus, incidentally, has refused mutlple interview requests to appear on The Bat Segundo Show to clarify some of the charges that have appeared on these pages.)
But why do that when a former box office titan is cheerily answering everything (and I do mean everything)? Everything from whether Rhinestone or Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! is his worst movie to his revelation that Dolly Parton is the ultimate woman.
From The Dizzies, comes a series of bizarre links to Ain’t It Cool News. Apparently, Sylvester Stallone took it upon himself to answer just about every question that was asked of him. From Dolly Parton to the use of three seashells. I even suspect that if I sent Stallone a package of brownies, he’d actually send a thank you note. Which is more than we can say for Sam “We Take No Chances” Tanenhaus.
Here are the links to Stallone’s ongoing Q&A:
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Due to Recent Legal Threats, This Blog Will Now Be Known as “Blog Posts Showing What Happens on Each Synapse of Edward Champion’s Mind”
Georgie Lewis of Tin House writes in with the following news:
The highly anticipated publication of artist/provocateur Zak Smith’s visual homage to Thomas Pynchon’s seminal novel Gravity’s Rainbow took a bizarre turn last week. Pynchon’s publisher, Penguin USA, believing the book’s original title, Gravity’s Rainbow Illustrated: One Picture for Every Page, was misleading, demanded Tin House Books change the title or face a lawsuit. Smith’s book will now be known as Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow, the title of the original series of artwork showcased at the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
Roundup
- It’s common knowledge that John Sutherland is an uninformed assclown. But his latest column (which is even more preposterous if you listen to the computer-speech program parsing his drivel) once again begs the question of why an august publication like The New Statesman would hire a no-nothing dullard to cover books. Why my ad hominem fiesta? Well, it’s no different from Sutherland’s strange and uninformed attack on Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker, a novel that Sutherland calls “dense,” and “fearsomely demanding.” Without citing anything specific to support his tenuous argument, Sutherland further suggests that the broadsheets have no interest in calling it. This all comes from a man who hasn’t even read the book. And if Sutherland’s anti-intellectual tone wasn’t enough for you, he then suggests that the publisher-subsidized Quill Awards were set up as a populist alternative. Instead of kvetching about litbloggers, I think Sutherland should be more concerned about the level of stupidity contained within his own ramblings. (via Galleycat)
- Frank Miller’s drawing chair is being auctioned off.
- In the UK, retail is now facing its worst Xmas season since 1981.
- Forbes details the top-earning authors. No surprise: Dan Brown’s at the top of the list.
- BookFox reports on a Dave Eggers/Deng live “interview.”
- Do MP3s sound awful? (via James Tata)
- I must agree with the Hag that “bitch-perfect” should be used more in reviews.
- Dan Green on the NYTBR Notable Books list.
- The 12 Sexiest Men Who Were Never Alive. (via Gwenda)
- Olive Logan: the first literary agent in America.
- Congratulations, Grandpa VanderMeer!
- Apparently, 50 years of copyright isn’t enough for McCartney & Co. (via Ron Silliman)
- Quiet Bubble has declared 2006 the Year of the Woman.
- “Her stories bristle with names and family connections, with the contents of houses, purses, steamer trunks and cars. And, violating another dictum of workshop instructors, the simplest tale will often be told from more than one point of view and in multiple time frames. She shows a lot, but when it’s necessary, she’s also happy to tell.” Thanks, Tony. The prof grants you a B- for your English 101 essay, but I’ll see you at the arcade to play DDR. Will someone please tell Tony Scott that he is a film critic, not a literary one? (And while you’re at it, you might want to let Janet Maslin know too.)
- The Translation Project will be translating 100 Iranian literary texts to English.
- The Gray Lady reports on a phenomenon I observed almost a year ago: literary spam.
- You think litbloggers are bad? In the ’50s and ’60s, literary groupie Alice Denham got around.
- In Palo Alto, Moliere’s Les Femmes Savantes has been updated to 1936 Manhattan by playwright David Grimm.
- Noir writer Elizabeth Stromme has passed away. Sarah has more.
- Anthony Lane on Apocalypto. And don’t miss the SNL recut.
Not Tom and Ray, But Eli and Renee
Renee has put up her first Booktalk podcast, which apparently replaces cars with books and involves Renee and some guy named Eli responding to various voicemails that people leave about books. In any event, do give them a call at 415-992-8622, tell them about “winter books,” and bemuse them with ten-cent words.