Solid coverage from The Mumpsimus regarding Readercon:

Jonathan Lethem Samuel R. Delaney said that he read a western story by Theodore Sturgeon that, in the first half, was a beautiful Sturgeon story, and then in the second half was also a beautiful Sturgeon story, but a different one, and the experience of reading this story then made him want to write a western that was more unified but still beautiful, and this impulse was enough to get him thinking about something new to write [I forget what he said it was came out of this — maybe one of the stories in his first collection]. Writing, he said, comes from an urge to write something like someone else who inspired you, or to fix something that you read by someone else.

[UPDATE: It was Delaney, not Lethem. Thanks, Kathryn!]

M. John Harrison: “My gut instinct is that we ought to talk less to each other. Some people think that religion is to blame here. I think it’s something prior to that. I think it’s language. You can’t do religion until you have language. You can’t promise someone ‘freedom’ (Bush) or ‘paradise’ (bin Laden) except with words; those items are labels without a referent. And if I have to read another article by Martin Amis or Ian McEwan — middle class wankers who have never been in harm’s way their whole lives, competing with one another to produce dully clever, middle-aged Britpap about real events; or if I have to hear another soundbite in which Slimy Tony, dressed up in a casual jacket to look ‘hard’, licks the arse of the biggest bully in the global playground by ‘pledging’ himself; or if I have to hear any more investment bankers presenting themselves as wounded martyrs in the ruins of the Church of Money; or if I have to hear another Islamic spokesman misappropriate the words ‘caution’ and ‘evidence’; I think I might fly an aeroplane into something myself. Only so I don’t have to hear words any more. Do you see? I’m fucking sick of words because I’ve spent nearly forty years manipulating people with them for a living, and they don’t come near being the thing itself. All rhetoric, including mine, is empty rhetoric. Every death is a real one.”

More Harrison interviews can be found at Strange Horizons, Cyberdark, and Zone SF. His work is highly recommended.

As if the 9/11 victimhood card being played by politicians to start wars based on fixed intelligence and now being used by priapic reactionaries to prop up London as a fait accompli for living in chronic fear* weren’t bad enough, it seems that the Portland Tribune has seen fit to offer yet another ridiculous article about how 9/11 has made it difficult to finish novels. Here’s what novelist Richard Rinaldi has to say:

“And because so much had changed, I was aware that I�d probably lost a novel, but so what? In the scheme of things it didn�t matter. My options were to just throw it away or put it another city. But my agents were leaning on me to include 9/11. Initially I was very reluctant, but I came around and said, �All right, I�ll give it a try.� “

For those who haven’t been watching the calendar, 9/11 was three and a half fucking years ago. In other words, most of the time it takes to finish an undergraduate degree (assuming that you’re on the four year plan).

While certainly 9/11 has changed American life, I’m disheartened by the idea that a novel itself must completely change or drastically alter its content to reflect the jingoism of its time. Particularly when authors are, for the most part, paid a pittance to sweat over a novel that they’ve labored over for many years. The thing that matters is what the author has to say at the time he writes it. Wrapping a novel around the American flag or a sense of victimhood that will date poorly is hypocritical to the nature of art, and I would argue that it’s akin to a total sellout. Do we really need a marketplace saturated with potboilers that represent today’s answers to Peter Bryant’s Red Alert? Further, is a literary effort truly literature if it answers to the dicta of what’s hot with the public? Besides, from a marketing standpoint, this seems anathema to the nature of publishing, given that a book undergoes a two-year production process and attitudes are likely to change.

Technorati Tags: publishing, artistic integrity, Richard Rinaldi, jingoism, sellout

* — For more on this subject, Ian McEwan has penned an essay for the Guardian on how the London bombings were inevitable.

The battle between the two San Francisco alt-weeklies (one a New Times offshoot; the other indie and full of piss and vinegar) continues. But as the Guardian has reported, things have become a little sleazier. It seems that Clear Channel, known for promoting conservative radio and restricting free speech, has entered the fray. Bill Graham Presents, which owns the Warfield Theatre, is a Clear Channel subsidiary. In exchange for an exclusive advertising deal with SF Weekly, the Warfield over the next three years will be renamed (wait for it) the SF Weekly Warfield.

Pacific Bell Park was silly enough. But I think this corporate subsidizing takes the cake in the preposterous department. For one thing, “weekly” has transformed from a noun to an accidental advertising. One can only imagine future conversations among avid concertgoers:

Abbott: Hey man, you gonna check out the Killers?

Costello: Aw shit yeah! Gotta grab some tickets. Where they playing?

Abbott: The SF Weekly Warfield?

Costello: Where is it this week?

Abbott: No, the SF Weekly Warfield.

Costello: I know it’s weekly, but what kind of Warfield is it going to be?

Abbott: That’s the theatre’s name.

Costello: Gotcha, but where’s it going to be?

Abbott: In San Francisco. At the Weekly.

Costello: The Warfield?

Abbott: Yup.

Costello: And it changes every week.

Abbott: Yes. The music, not the place.

Costello: So where’s the Warfield going to be?

Technorati Tags: alt-weekly, warfield, San Francisco

I’ve let the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch updates slip for the past month. However, I’d like to ensure RotR readers that this Sunday, the weekly test will return, including the seminal male to female book reviewer test. In the meantime, the prolific Lauren Baratz-Logsted offers a guest essay over at Booksquare about bias against female reviewers. Ms. Baratz-Logsted offers her thoughts on this issue, takes up the troubling divide between male and female authors, and points to “[a] book review created by, for and about women; a book review that has room for Joyce Carol Oates, every single one of her books as they come out, but that also has room for all genres.” Until this utopian ideal happens, I direct readers to Domestic Goddess, a moderated e-journal devoted to womenwriters who pen domestic fiction, A Celebration of Women Writers, which has been attempting to collect online information on women writers for the past eleven years, Scribbling Women, and the Women Writers Project, which collects texts penned by women between 1400 and 1850.

Technorati Tags: women writers, NYTBR