I had hoped to get to the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch this week. But I appear to be, once again, time-challenged. But congratulations to Maud for scoring a review.
Posting will be light over the next day, as I work on a few things on multiple fronts. Including this front.
In fact, it suddenly occurs to me that the notion of “multiple fronts” seems a contradiction in terms. How, for example, would multiple fronts apply when considering a full frontal nudity scene? In this case, there can be only one front. Even if you surgically implanted additional scrotums and nipples onto your body, it would still be only one front. Unless you could somehow be in two bodies at the same time while observing a partner or performer who was full frontal nude. In which case, the performer or the partner would be “multiple full frontal nude,” but completely unaware of the preternatural out-of-body experience that would make this term of art applicable not to the partner or performer, who is going to this remarkably enjoyable trouble of doing a “full frontal nude” and yet unable to enjoy this sensation in plural form.
In any event, it gets me too aroused just thinking about this. So for now, I’ll say tata.
[UPDATE: And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention David Kipen's most recent column, where he responds to readers who quibbled over his Harry Potter and the Half-Prince review (including one death threat) and identifies the qualities of a critic.]
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.