Category / Spiers, Elizabeth

by DrMabuse

Bright Lights, Big Menu

I was going to pull some second-person take on Jay McInerney as New York Times restaurant critic. But, dammit, Liz Spiers beat me to it.

Kate DiCamillo has won the Newberry this year for The Tale of Despereaux. The book concerns a mouse who falls in love with a princess, which is a story that (in all seriousness) I’m likely to get behind. In her early days, DiCamillo collected more than 470 rejection letters, which shows not only that persistence pays off, but that it probably kills a lot of trees in the process.

Monotori Kishi’s Misshitsu, a comic book depicting gonads and, well, a lot of sex, has been ruled obscene in Japan. The obscenity precedent was laid down in 1957 with a Japanese translation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Meanwhile, here at home, the Supreme Court has said no to an appeal in the Tony Twist/McFarlane battle.

Marginalia and Other Crimes shows library book damages in all their sad glory. (via Maud, who’s now back from her trip in Florida).

And, damn, Spalding Gray is missing. (via Bookslut)

by DrMabuse

Back from My Hiatus

Liz Spiers has excerpts from the new Peter Biskind book, Down and Dirty Pictures. From what I can tell, Ben Affleck tried to give Harvey Weinstein a fruit basket, with unfortunate results (“Apples! That’s bad taste. Do you know who I am? I don’t eat fucking apples. Who is this guy? I’m going to go outside and kick your fucking ass. You take your apple bitch home and fuckin’ kill him.”). (via Greencine Daily)

Dave Pelzer is now trying out the “regular guy” angle. But how regular can a guy be when he’s made as much money as Pelzer has? Pelzer’s quoted, “Everybody thinks, ‘Oooo, Dave Pelzer. Oooo, Dave Pelzer.’ That’s why I just say, ‘Just shut up and sit down.’ I’m just a regular guy trying to keep my family together. I’m just the village idiot that wrote a book.” Five now, actually, with the just-releaed Privilege of Youth. If Pelzer’s such a regular guy, if he truly is a self-proclaimed village idiot, then why do people keep buying his books? And why does he keep landing those lucrative lecturing gigs? Hey, Dave, I’ve got your “regular guy” right here. It’s called unshaven, unpublished dude, maybe collecting unemployment, having a Top Ramen fiesta.

Speaking of regular guys, the Globe has an obituary up for Samuel Albert. Albert was an insurance executive who worked long hours and raised five kids, squeezing in a poem when he could find the time.

Need an angle to pitch your project? Try the grey market. The Financial Times writes, “Eighty per cent of the country’s wealth is controlled by the over-50s but 95 per cent of adspend targets people under-50; 86 per cent of over-50s say they don’t relate to most current advertising yet, for example, 66 per cent of new cars are bought by people over-45. The over-50s in employment outspend their under-50 counterparts by 20 per cent. And over the next 20 years the over-50s market in the UK will grow by 30 per cent, while the under-50s market will shrink by 5 per cent.”

The possibilities here are limitless. We’re talking a Steely Dan reunion, a fiction market saturated by endless Anne Tyler-like variations on suburban white males descending into mid-life crisis action when their $200 fillet mignon arrives slightly undercooked, and more sex and nudity involving older people (Diane Keaton’s flash was just the tip of the iceberg). So go at it, brave new marketers! You’ve spent a small lifetime getting hep to the demands of a coddled generation just out of high school. But do you have what it takes to get acquainted with the likes of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number?”

The funny thing is that thirty years from now, people will be demanding a reunion of OutKast.