Category / Roundup

by Edward Champion

Hiatus (Sorta)

We’ve been working our keisters off here. Two Segundo shows in the works (one we hope to get up tonight with a very special guest), with a third one on the way. So literary news and the like are going to be slow for the time being. Bear with us.

In the meantime, please enjoy:

  • Mark Sarvas talking with John Banville, Part I.
  • Bud Parr’s response to A.O. Scott’s NYT article comparing The Believer and n + 1.
  • Laura Miller’s humorless response to T.C. Boyle’s excellent new short story collection, Tooth and Claw. (Yes, Scott, I know, I told you it was “a mixed bag,” but that was on the basis of reading the first three stories, only one of which was so-so. Since then, the collection has picked up remarkably and I recommend it to all RotR readers looking to restore their faith in the short story, if not for the deliciously caustic finale of “Jubilation” and the near perfect “The Swift Passage of the Animals” alone, the latter being a witty depiction of dating loaded with nuance and quiet metaphors that are apparently quite invisible to Ms. Miller.)
  • Laila Lalami reviews Desertion in The Nation.
by Edward Champion

Round the Sphere

by Edward Champion

Back to the Circlejerk

  • Scott Esposito has initiated The Quarterly Conversation, a collection of reviews, thoughts and interviews that Mr. Esposito plans to serve up every quarter.
  • A fifteen year old girl has received the Bungei Award, making her the youngest winner or this Japanese award for newcomers. Her identity has been kept secret, presumably to ward off the depraved hentai enthusiasts.
  • The Globe and Mail chats with Doug Coupland. Now he seems to be getting inspiration from the likes of B.S. Johnson (or perhaps something substance-based): “You take the book, and you remove the pages and soak them in a Tupperware container and then you chew the pages one at a time. I always did it when I was watching TV.” Some folks call this snacking. Others might call it self-indulgent navel-gazing. Coupland calls it novel-writing.
  • The New York Times, about as desperate for readers these days as a parched refugee waiting for FEMA, will add comics and other doodads to its Sunday magazine. Of course, since it involves Chris Ware, it can’t be completely discounted. But the real question is whether this means the end for Deborah Solomon and Randy Cohen?
  • Most predictable literary news of the week: “Brando’s pulp fiction wallow goes overboard.” You don’t say?
  • Pope John Paul II wrote a one-act play called “The Silversmith’s Shop.” Apparently, it will be staged in October. The play was written when the late Pope was known as the Bishop of Krakow and concludes that “Love is no adventure. It has its own specific burden.” Perhaps the late Pope’s rather adventureless approach to love might be one of the reasons he got into the Catholic racket.
  • Richard Ford and Anne Rice on losing New Orleans.
  • Orhan Pamuk faces a potential three years in jail for “publicly denigrating Turkish identity” — in other words, daring to tell the truth about the 1915 Armenian massacre.
  • An update on Zoe Heller.
  • Salman Rushdie has declared celebrity a curse. Offering proof, Mr. Rushdie pointed to a person following him with a small Rushdie effigy and several pins.
by Edward Champion

Non-Katrina Roundup

  • Earlier in the year, Jenny McCarthy, one of the finest anthropologists of our time, sold a book for $1 million called Marriage Laughs. It was a book offering marriage advice. Unfortunately, it appears that Ms. McCarthy has had to go back to the drawing board. You see, she couldn’t follow her own advice. She’s divorcing husband John Asher. Perhaps she can successfully retool her book. After all, how many self-help books are out there that offer a winning formula for short-term marriage. Here’s a potential title for Ms. McCarthy: Short-Attention Span Marriage: A Modern Woman’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of Your Man for a Few Years.
  • Is Christopher Paolini the new J.K. Rowlng? He’s just 21 years old and Eldest, the sequel to Eragon, has sold more than 425,000 hardcover copies. If movies are involved, we only ask that Mr. Paolini hold out against offering the film rights to Chris Columbus.
  • The Rake believes that John Updike’s review of Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown is a pot/kettle/black situation.
  • And speaking of Rushdie, he’ll be part of a new History Channel series called The Write Stuff. Each episode will “reveal the trials and tribulations of these writers on their journey to literary success.” Why not a series dedicated to the struggling freelancer? Surely, the History Channel is interested in portraying a fair and accurate depiction of history (which does after all include losers), rather than recruiting big names to perpetuate the myth that one can actually make a living from writing, right?
  • For now, despite an impending move and a sartorial dilemma, David Kipen’s still banging out a column for the Chronicle. This time, perhaps alluding to his forthcoming departure, he writes that San Francisco Noir is “the perfect sadistic gift for somebody getting ready to miss the Bay Area like crazy.”
  • Like book reviews, scientific papers are about settling scores.
  • The Bay Guardian chats with cartoonist Justin Hall.
  • The Book Standard talks with newspaper editors about their bookloads. (via Haggis)
  • And if you’re in San Francisco, please note that tickets are now on sale for this year’s San Francisco Fringe Festival. How can you go wrong with Cervis with a Smile performed at Original Joe’s?
by Edward Champion

Quick Roundup

  • We’re very sorry to learn that George Fasel of A Girl and a Gun has passed away. Our condolences to his friends and family.
  • Dan Wickett talks with more literary journal editors. At this rate, Mr. Wickett will have chatted with everyone in the literary world by June 2006.
  • Bad Librarian’s chronicles continue, with remarks on the Patriot Act and a shocking personal revelation.
  • Amazon will begin offering short story downloads. The stories will be 49 cents a pop. Presumably, each user who signs up for this service will have every known purchasing histroy detail logged and will be recommended tales that have nothing whatsoever to do with their literary interests. (Example: If you liked “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” you might like “The Snows of Central Park West” by Bret Easton Ellis.)
  • You have to love the way some folks jump to conclusions. The speculation continues with this latest press release (PDF) now making the rounds. The APA is now calling for the video game industry to reduce violence. Even if we accept the idea that video game violence is a major influence upon patterned behavior (and the resolution itself corrals this in with several other studies relating to “the media,” rather than “video games” explicitly), it apparently hasn’t occurred to these psychiatrists that parents might be the ones responsible for exposing their children to violent content and that the choice is theirs. As much as I would welcome the idea of preventing McDonald’s from operating, you wouldn’t, for example, see the AMA demand that the fast food industry stop selling hamburgers.