Bear with me as the new incarnation is being tinkered with.

Here are some links to recent activity.

Recent Reviews, Essays, and Articles:

“The Perils of Literary Biography” (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 21, 2007)
Gonzo and The Gonzo Way (The Philly Inquirer, December 30, 2007)
In defense of the single-sentence paragraph (The Guardian, January 2, 2008)
Review of Stephen King’s Duma Key (Penthouse, April 2008)

Bat Segundo Podcasts:

#160 — Will Self
#161 — Stewart O’Nan
#162 — Ken Kalfus
#163 — Jess Walter
#164 — Peter Fernandez and Corinne Orr (Speed Racer)
#165 — Howard Jacobson
#166 — Dave White
#167 — David Rakoff, Part One
#168 — David Rakoff, Part Two

While I contemplate just what the new version of this site will entail, sans Reluctant, here are recent articles, essays, podcasts, and other strange things I’m involved with that you can find at other places. I’ll update this post as the output propagates.

Recent Reviews, Essays, and Articles:

“The Perils of Literary Biography” (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 21, 2007)

Bat Segundo Podcasts:

#160 — Will Self
#161 — Stewart O’Nan
#162 — Ken Kalfus
#163 — Jess Walter
#164 — Peter Fernandez and Corinne Orr (Speed Racer)

This morning, I filed for divorce from Return of the Reluctant, citing irreconcilable differences. It was an amicable parting. No children, no property to squabble over. No embarrassing deposition testimony read to the jury. No alimony. Reluctant and I have had ourselves a good time over the years. But I’m a different person now. And I finally confessed to a good friend on the phone that I really had nothing more to say about books or the literary world in the Reluctant format. And I laughed for ten minutes over how absurdly simple the choice was. When something stops being fun, it’s pretty easy to become decisive.

You see, four years ago, this blog was started by a guy who worked a drab day job. But that guy is no more. Six months ago, I quit my drab day job, moved to New York to try and write for a living, and became much happier. Production stepped up on The Bat Segundo Show and the show’s tone changed to something more thoughtful, controversial, and interesting. It was much more to my liking. Yeah, there are a few clunkers in the 160 or so odd shows. But for the most part, I’m proud of the output. There are some incredible conversations in the archive and I really don’t care who hates it or ignores it. The great thing about blogging, podcasting, and the Internet is that there is truly nothing to lose.

Nevertheless, Reluctant was more of a chore. Often a thankless one. A daily grind in which I regularly asked myself why I wasn’t putting this kind of energy into the novel I’ve been working on, which is about halfway done, or the old-time radio project that I can’t stop dreaming about. Or just about any wild or ambitious idea that enters my noggin. There seem to be many of those.

I may be back. Old habits die hard. Maybe there will be something even half as fantastic as Black Garterbelt in Reluctant’s place. I don’t know. But if I do come back through a blog, and, frankly I’m on the fence right now, it will be in a new form.

For now, however, I’m done with blogging. And I’m serious this time. There are pages of crazed dialogue to bang out. Stories and essays to write. Podcasts to unfurl. Actors to recruit. A troubled protagonist to flesh out, who I’ve been learning more about over the past year.

If you’re looking for new content in the meantime, well, you’ll find all that over at Segundo — including, very soon, that Will Self conversation that some of you have been asking about.

But thanks very much for helping to make Reluctant what it’s been over the past four years.

— Edward Champion

[TANGENTIALLY RELATED: Lawrence Tate observes that my Chronicle of Higher Education piece, “The Perils of Literary Biography,” can be found here.]

[UPDATE: I learned this afternoon from Josh Glenn that apparently Keith Gessen and n+1 are responsible for my decision. Actually, Gessen had nothing to do with it. It was Dan Fogelberg’s recent death that caused me to sob for days. I sang “Same Old Lang Syne” to myself several times because I couldn’t steal behind her in the frozen foods section without getting arrested. As regular readers here observed over the past four years, I was never capable of an independent thought. For all decisions, I consult Dan Fogelberg for advice. Had Fogelberg not passed on, I suspect things would have been different.]

Whirring wind, the whistling of asthmatic ghosts, the clinks of cans and other detritus thrown out windows by careless neighbors and left to pick up in an unpredictable gust. Spooky and grandiloquent gestures in lieu of snow. The slush well melted. Two inch puddles evaporating before tomorrow morning. Footfalls beyond walls. Eight days before the unfulfilled promise of a wintry wonderland. Mere weeks before year’s end. Party poppers and streamers and the clinks of champagne flutes, but not today. The phones are dead at this zero hour, batteries left to expire and the monitors dissolving into screensavers. Everyone is shaking. Jittery souls packed in thick soles, stampeding through powdery barricades. The other half packed inside clinging to lovers and protective blankets. Times Square half-deserted, the heavy credit card swiping primed for the robust nor’easter of Penn Station procrastinators. Subways chug and conductors repeat MTA warnings. They are the lonely drivers of this city, saturating these barely populated cars with lonely chatter. The rest ride silent in cabs because it beats shivering in shelters.

The smarter and richer ones have fled to warmer places, to friends and families, to wintering — although they’ll never use that gerund. There are still places that pulse with life. Warm tableaus where everybody seems mystified that the holiday hasn’t come to pass. Which explains the reliance upon safe tunes that everybody knows like the Beatles blasted over speakers, defacing the silence and filling in for the thirty-seventh version of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Daylight’s at a premium and everyone knows it. In particular, the nine-to-fivers are sad because they’re inside when the sun stabs through the clouds. It’s hard to smile, but jokes come easier. And sometimes there’s the prospect of a shared flask. Conversations are quieter, subjects less scintillating. It’s as if we’re all part of a mandatory Secret Santa operation. Brain cells dwindle, fires kindle. But cats and dogs jump on laps and are walked around blocks, whether sun or sleet. Kids bristle with energy and anticipation. The haul might be pretty good or anticlimactic. The alone hole up with big bottles and are left alone.

If you are receiving email replies from me from several months ago, do not be alarmed. I’m simply very thorough about the email backlog. Many replies still forthcoming.