THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: You better work your stuff. Deadline’s quick and coming.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: I’ve got it!
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: We’re in this together, kid, I know.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: No, no, this illiterate tendency of yours, with regards to the whole Faust thing.
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Careful there. Sounds as if you might be groping.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: You deny the new books under your arm?
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: I deny them until I have read them. Then I will acknowledge that they exist.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: I’ve got it. Taking a cue…
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: As I’ve said, careful. Timing is everything, and to grope onto my sum of experience, whether it be that fabulous lady we were talking with on Saturday night, who let us bank that side pocket shot.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: Yes, she was cute. But, no, it’s all valid.
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Valid at the risk of turning into some egregious self-chronicler. Some autobiographical humdrum.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: We’re doing this already. The blog, the journal, the stories that sometimes drift close to the bone, and now…
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: CAREFUL! Jesus, just because I have these magical musty books underneath my arm doesn’t mean you should pilfer from them too. For instance, this prologue involving a manager, merryman, and poet.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: Yes!
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: No. Invention. The necessary skills, bro.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: Yes, but Picasso and great artists! I’m losing pages paring it down.
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: I know.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: And the temptation to latch onto anything.
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Your aim is to keep things moving.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: Ice floe!
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Down the stream, and your plot will freeze should you pilfer yet again. They don’t buy these pomo tricks anymore.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: They do!
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Is your aim to persuade me? Because you’re doing a crummy job.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: Please understand. I’m resorting to jokes involving cleansing products.
THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: Well, the choice is yours. Then again, good stuff doesn’t happen without a little bit of risk.
Internecine
– April 27, 2004Posted in: Uncategorized
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.