Okay, the holidays have made us extremely lazy and we really have very little to say that might be construed as witty and/or urbane. Like our homeboy Golden Rule Jones, we suspect we’ve gone over the deep end and, if it keeps up like this, we may start consorting with top ten kvetchers who know their stuff and aren’t afraid to flaunt it. Perhaps all this was because the coffeehouse was inordinately packed yesterday and we grew slightly claustrophobic typing meaningless nonsense into our laptop on a small round table. And instead of concentrating upon the work at hand, we then started writing about the attractive young lady who was sitting near us. The text became Byronic and slightly provocative. (I’m sure you’ve experienced this.) This was when we had to stop writing, and we deleted the file and slammed the laptop shut. The streams of consciousness were crossed, so to speak. We then stared into our warm cup of green tea and imagined that we could detect its soothing smell (reminiscent of haiku) permeating from just outside, followed by a veritable tsunami of green tea flooding through the coffeehouse and soaking the sartorial garb of all, some of the folks producing rubber ducks and toy boats instead of being offended by the destruction, all this of course being personified in torrential size and undulations by our harmless thoughts. The laptop was then packed. And we proceeded to lie for a long while. Not bored. Just perplexed. Slightly fatigued. What was it that was turning us into such lazy asses? Then we dumped audio, did dishes, responded to a few emails that looked interesting, and began trying to prod the indolent individual who was probably reacting this way.
The point of all this:
1. We’re not going to bed tonight until we give you a new podcast. The conversation involves hypothesizing about violence.
2. The LBC is dormant, but will reawaken on January 15 with the new set of nominees and the winner. We have something extremely ambitious and special planned, which will be cross-posted here. As does the incredible Dan Wickett.
3. Because of our general inability to concentrate, posting will be light until we recover. Unless of course we are pushed over the edge (likely) by some ungodly literary topic. Should you wish to serve as a momentary muse, emails, of course, are welcome.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
How do you prefer to be mused?