Maud has a very interesting post on how Twitter may very well be doing its part to divulge publishing deals to the public. What’s fascinating about all this is that, unlike blogging, corporate blocking software won’t prevent some folks from Twittering. They can, after all, type in sentences from their cell phones. You no longer need a keyboard to blog. Because the Twitter people have made this all so easy. So if there is now such an overwhelming urge to confess (the new form of resistance?), then why not encourage workers to do so anyway?
I must likewise confess about my own confessions. In the early years of this blog, when I had a day job, about 90% of the posts were composed on the clock. The fact that most of my co-workers were not readers made it all somewhat esoteric. To this day, I still heighten and downplay minute words and phrases just to see how close the readers are paying attention. Indeed, the scary verities elucidate remarkable yammering from unexpected nomina.
As to whether I have a Twitter feed, and whether I confess anything there, well, the Internet’s a grand adventure, isn’t it? To me, Twitter seems to be blogging’s answer to the David Markson novel. But now that every word we type is fair game for speculation, a whole grand cabinet of fun has been presented to me.
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. (