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.)
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!
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.
At the the Litblog Co-Op, they’re cha-cha-chatting about the next round’s lineup. Discussion, guest blogging, and podcasts will be forthcoming — along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Stay tuned!
In addition to composing blustering and martial music, John Philip Sousa wrote novels, which were also presumably blustering and martial. More from Paul Collins.
So what excites the publishing industry these days (or purports to)? “Forrest Gump wins Powerball.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no.
Nan! Nan! Self-serving Nan! She’ll bray about Oprah because she can! Nan! Nan! Ignoble Nan! She doesn’t know Frey is a flash in the pan.
Christ, the corporate magpie has done it again. Instead of focusing on such blogs as Book Covers, which has been quite around for some time and often includes interviews with book cover designers, Foreword, a book design blog that’s been operating since 2003, or the more recent Judge a Book By Its Cover, Dwight “Pilfering Pettifogger” Garner acts as if these seminal blogs have never happened, devoting his attentions to The Book Design Review — presumably because “nytimes” is in Joseph Sullivan’s URL. No doubt that Garner will claim ignorance on these three other blogs, just as he acted as if Largeheartedboy’s Book Notes had never happened. But in an age where finding blog antecedents is just a Google search away, this is not a reasonable excuse. Any blog — corporate or independent — has a duty to know what’s been set down before and to innovate without absconding, Mencia-like, from what others have done.
Maud notes that indie film shoots could become a rarity — thanks to draconian measures and overbroad legislative terms instituted by Mayor Bloomberg, which would involve slapping indie filmmakers with obtaining a permit and $1 million in liability insurance. (As I’ve learned more about Bloomberg, I’ve been scratching my head over how this fine city elected such a colossal asshole for mayor.) Public feedback ends on Friday and there is this petition set up by Picture New York. If you don’t want to see cultural depiction of New York transform into a needless plutocracy, voice your opinion today!
Orthofer, by dint of a dutiful reader, has located this helpful PDF file. Since the publisher hasn’t sent the dutiful Mr. Orthofer his copy, I suppose we’ll have to contend with this TLS review in the meantime.
Despite Robert Ludlum’s death six years ago, it would appear that he remains a prolific author. Apparently, the Ludlum executors are taking a page out of the V.C. Andrews playbook, having ghost writers expand upon story ideas that Ludlum had lying about. As much as I don’t care for Ludlum’s work, I still find this tantamount to sodomizing a writer’s dead corpse. If an uncredited writer riffs off a story idea, can it be sufficiently called a Robert Ludlum book? Ludlum’s agent, Henry Morrison, claims that Ludlum told him, “I don’t want my name to disappear. I’ve spent 30 years writing books and building an audience.” But does flooding the marketplace with faux Ludlum books really a fair way to preserve an author’s legacy? Why couldn’t Ludlum or his followers accept that all good things come to an end? Oh yeah. I keep forgetting about these green slips of paper that seduce people so easily. (via Jenny D)
Last night’s overwhelming support for the Herring Wonder exceeded even my expectations. I felt bad for Craig “The Crippler” Davidson, who maintained gravitas near the end amidst a decidedly pro-Ames audience. I was very impressed with Miss Saturn — and, no, not the way you’re thinking. Swinging forty hula hoops in varying degrees of elliptical rotation is no small feat. David Leslie orchestrated the elements. Gleason’s Gym owner Bruce Silverglade destroyed the Burgess Meredith stereotype. Patrick “The Mangina” Bucklew and Valmonte Sprout were fantastic, but need to work on their timing. They entered the ring on the second round and caused considerable confusion. I was sitting next to Silverglade and he looked as if he was prepared to draw blood when this happened. Others dwelt unduly upon who Ames was dating. Referee Dominic Manatho and I quietly performed our duties. And the call for blood was something to see.
New Yorkexamines the Mediabistro sale and concludes: “In fact, Touby’s success underscores the difference between the current (seeming) bubble and that of the late nineties: The way to cash out now is to get bought out, not to go public. And until the right buyer shows up, all that most of us can do is stand back and guesstimate what’s worth what.” If I didn’t know any better, this seems a disingenuous way of evoking Chris Anderson’s hypothesis without actually typing in the dreadful words “long tail.”
A quick reminder that Jonathan Ames and Craig Davidson will be fighting tonight at Gleason’s Gym at 8:00 PM.
Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s excellent comic, Y: The Last Man, is being adapted into a film by the folks behind Disturbia. I am unsure how many Hollywood dollars will be committed to training monkeys, with the animal trainers spending hours attempting to reproduce Guerra’s juxtapositions of Ampersand on Yorick’s shoulders. But I’m convinced that monkey accuracy will be the key indicator as to whether this is a successful adaptation or not. Hell, this particular film could very well set a precedent for persuasive monkey behavior. If Clint Eastwood, who I understand has some experience in these matters, is somehow involved, then this film adaptation will go forth without a hitch.
Guitarist Brian May is completing his Ph.D more than twenty-five years after he abandoned it for a music career. Presumably, having to endure Ben Elton’s dumbing down of Queen’s legacy was enough to push May over the edge.
Tod Goldberg offers tips on how to write an essay for Parade.
I stopped getting excited about new Noam Chomsky volumes when I turned 22. A glowing orb on my hand went off, signaling that there were better ways to be political than celebrating the art of writing lifeless sentences.
The Weekly World News, one of the most important newspapers of our time, is shutting down. The News‘s fabrications were the best of all the tabloids. And I can’t think of another publication that will be able to offer the same kind of amusement as I wait to purchase broccoli. (via Pete Anderson)
Speaking of which, here’s Magazine Death Pool — sort of a Fucked Company for periodicals.
This is bizarre: Carcassonne has been transformed into an Xbox game. But truthfully, can those delightful tiles actually be replaced by a television screen?
Mr. Mitchelmore raises an interesting point about prejudices before reading. I think that a book, no matter how overexposed the subject matter, is still capable of surprising a reader if an author is good enough and that it’s a bit foolish to discount an author’s creative possibilities within a given formula. If anything, seeing precisely what Coetzee will come up with after so many books about writers writing books is the more interesting question. Hell, is not David Markson’s “Novel” tetralogy — if we must group them together — essentially about a writer writing a book? You’d be hard-pressed to call his approach similar to Stephen King novel featuring a writer writing a book.
Spoon is not treading water. The new album is a fabulous head game with what the long-time listening base is expecting. (Case in point: the abbreviated “Your” in the title “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb.” And where’s the Y in “Rhthm and Soul?” And why a song about a Japanese cigarette case? That’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a band desperately seeking objects in a hotel room to write a song.) I’m liking this album very much because of these elisions, which also manifest themselves in such “ghost” flourishes as that sequenced horn section which opens up “The Underdog,” only to not quite match up with the bass notes in that chorus’s expected pomposity. (And then the “horns” shift to a clear synth voice around the three minute mark.) No, it’s not as overtly experimental as something like Kid A and these production decisions aren’t immediately clear on the first few listens. But it’s still pretty fun. And even if you don’t sign on for this sort of thing, there are still slacking rockers (“slockers?”) like “Finer Feelings” and “Don’t You Evah.”
And speaking of Mr. VanderMeer, here he is again in this week’s Book World.