Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

The Fiery Furnaces

This is a public service announcement.

Avoid the Fiery Furnaces live.

In the studio, the Fiery Furnaces are perhaps one of the more interesting White Stripes-style experimenters working today. But as a live band, they are about as tedious as a snare-bass backbeat that goes on without variation for six hours. Their drummer is an imbecile who seems to be under the mistaken impression that his six crappy fills, repeated ad nauseum, and his relentless pounding make him today's answer to Keith Moon. The man beat so hard on his setup that his drum stands were constantly shifted out of shape, leaving him to constantly readjust them between songs. I suspected that he was either a last-minute replacement or a friend of a friend who happened to like drumming.

Singer Eleanor Friedberger, whose spastic stage presence resembled a speed freak who needed to be told bluntly that music was not a solid career choice, seems to be under the false impression that belting out all of her lyrics in a rapid and indecipherable clip makes for innovation. And Matthew Friedberger believes that turning his keyboard up as loud as possible, where notes are strained beyond recognition through a muddled sound mix, is the stuff that concerts are made of. This band is not tight. They are tone deaf and not in a good and carefully honed way a la Sonic Youth. Ms. Friedberger continuously sang in different keys than the band was playing. It made me sad, and it made me embarassed for them.

These people are not fun at all, nor do they appear to be having fun. In which case, why even bother to tour?

What's worse is that the Fiery Furnaces have adopted an odd strategy that involves playing every one of their songs, if you can call an excerpt ranging from thirty seconds to two minutes a song, in a continuous and uninterrupted flow. This renders "I Lost My Dog," for example, as a two-minute segment cast within an interminable garage band groove or "Bird Brain" as something played in the same tempo: too fast, too abbreviated, and sadly devoid of its original character.

I've heard garage bands sound better than these folks. Years ago, I recall seeing some terrible stoner band in Sacramento (name deliberately withheld) who insisted on playing long nine-minute songs -- all in the same tempo, all with a tedious and rudimentary cast. I never thought for a moment that the Fiery Furnaces would top them as one of the worst concertgoing experiences of all time. And the sad thing was that I was very familiar with the Fiery Furances' music.

Other goofball studio-reliant bands I've seen live (say: Of Montreal) at least understand that reproducing or transposing production-heavy songs live involves ingenuity and careful rehearsal. It's a pity that the Fiery Furnaces would rather throw away an opportunity to stumble upon unexpected moments of innovation. It's truly a disappointment, given the wild ideas and influences they're willing to throw into their albums.

Oh well. At least Dios Malos was good.

TBR

Since some of you asked... (Note: Some of these are rereads.)

Okay, I'm officially out of here.

Unapologetic Slacker

I've become such an effective slacker in the past week that, after some conversations with friends and family, I've decided to sequester myself from the Internet for the next three days. I apologize if I haven't answered your email. But then I haven't had the opportunity to slack like this for sometime. And I'm enjoying it immensely.

Will get to the next Tanenhaus Brownie Watch sometime on Monday evening. In the meantime, visit the fine folks on the left.

Meanwhile, here's a guide for effective slackdom:

1. Lie in bed as much as possible. If you can find a slacker companion, spend at least one day of your Period of Slack not moving from your bed -- ideally building pillow forts.
2. Naps are okay at any time of the day.
3. Disregard personal drinking rules. You can have a margarita at 11 AM if you want to.
4. If it's sunny outside, do try and get outside with a book.
5. It's okay if the apartment goes to hell. You can clean it at the end of the Period of Slack. If your Period of Slack lasts longer than a week, then be sure to pick up your shit at weekly intervals.
6. Be sure to inform friends that you're going through a Period of Slack. They may be shocked by how relaxed and easy-going you've become.
7. If losing track of the days bothers you, be sure to keep a calendar in easy display. But don't concentrate on what day it is until near the end of your Period of Slack. You'll need to acclimatize yourself back to regular life again.
8. Contrary to what anti-slacker neoconservatives tell you, a vacation can be very exhausting. Pace yourself.
9. An active slacker is better than a passive slacker. Active slackdom may require a bit more effort, but do try and get yourself accustomed to getting out of the house and checking out interesting expositions.
10. You may be shocked by how your neighborhood looks during a weekday afternoon. It may very well be more populated than you expect. Prepare yourself for something of a sensation as you see your immediate surroundings with newfound eyes.

But Where's Jimmy's Answer to 'Guero?"

The incomparable Jimmy Beck now has a blog of his own.

Morning Pileup

• Frederick Forsyth has decided to run against Tony Blair. Well, if this is what it takes to get him to stop writing, count me in as one of his most febrile supporters.
• Chang-rae Lee's next novel will center around the Korean War. The story will involve "a refugee girl raised in America after the war, a solider and an aid worker during the war." Lee also confessed that he made a mistake titling his last novel Aloft, pointing out that too many people were hoping for a gripping tale about real estate developers fighting over a flat.
• Somehow it escaped our eyes, but "Harry Matthews" gets an appropriately mysterious writeup in the Gray Lady. But an interesting side note is that nobody should trust John Strausbaugh with an "off the record" comment.
• We all know about Kathryn Chetkovich's infamous Granta essay about J-Franz. But what I didn't know is that Franzen's ex-wife stopped writing and reading after the breakup. The lesson here is that if you hope to keep up your writing career, DON'T DATE J-FRANZ! This has been a public service announcement for the Society to Preserve Creativity.
• Alice Hoffman was "deeply affected by The Twilight Zone."
• Fumio Niwa has passed on. He was 100. Also RIP David Hughes.
• There's a campaign in place to restore Ohio's image by the Ohio Secretary of State. Unfortunately, what the campaign doesn't tell you is that most of the writers and artists (including Toni Morrison, Michael Dirda, and Roger Zelazy) ended up moving away from Ohio.
• Oliver Stone + James Ellroy? Say it ain't so. What next? Paul Verhoeven and Donald E. Westlake?
• The Cumberland County Library in North Carolina has catered to its constitutency. They're paying $18,000 of their hard-earned money to offer 700 audio books. By my math, that's $25.71 a pop, or considerably more than a wholesale or library-rate hardcover.

Nine Inch Nails Live

So the big question Nine Inch Nails acolytes might be asking themselves is whether a cleaned up, happier, and oddly meatier Trent Reznor still puts out a good live show after five years off the concert circuit. The answer is a bona-fide yes.

On Wednesday night, I caught Nine Inch Nails at the Warfield. While the familiar stage elements were there (every member of the band resembles Trent Reznor; the live band goes out of its way to "adapt" each computer-generated song into a live set piece using real instruments, unlike certain bald Vegan assclowns who think that running up and down like a hamster with a sequenced beat is a live performance) and despite my reservations about the mixed new album, With Teeth, Reznor not only seemed to be having fun, but he actually cracked several smiles and threw several bottles of water into the crowd -- at one point confessing how much fun it was to "break shit."

Yet despite this jollier presence, Reznor demonstrated yet again that he's one of pop music's first-class growlers. Reznor performed for nearly 100 minutes straight without interruption and with terse commentary to the crowd. If anything, the angst in "Terrible Lie," "Starfuckers, Inc." and "Hurt" felt more nuanced and pointed, the mark of a man channeling the remnants of his anger into a high-octane purge. I got the sense that live shows function for Reznor in much the same way that a daily five-mile jog does for others.

My view of Reznor was occluded by a 6'5" thirtysomething guy continually shouting "Come on, Trent!" while failing to shake his body in time. But no matter. From what I saw, Reznor exuded raw physicality. He wrestled his mike stand as if it were a mad demon that he was determined to conquer. Midway through a song, he would head upstage to a black expanse, only to return with raw and redoubled ferality. It helped immensely that his bassist and guitarist flopped onto the dais like fish at a steady rate of one flop per 2.5 songs. That's dedication.

Perhaps the strangest element of the show was the audience. Because Nine Inch Nail's followers had aged with Reznor, there wasn't really a mosh pit to speak of -- just a handful of guys who tried to stir things up, only to feel the steady advance of creaking knees just before stopping and trying again. It was the kind of demographic that a money man would kill for. Nine Inch Nails attracted a steady mix of people, 18-40. Casual listeners and bodiced goths alike sung and jumped along. And Reznor, to his great credit, didn't unload too many of the standards. At least not until the very end.

But the oddest element was the marijuana use. Wafts of blue smoke trickled through the crowd, and I'm pretty sure that the second-hand smoke was what caused me to daze into the lights and the DF50 diffusion midway through the show. At one point, I'm certain I saw God. More importantly, it was curious to me how anyone could find Reznor's music mellow. I'd expect people to 420 at a Phish or Primus show. Or even a Korn show. But Nine Inch Nails? I suppose with enough familiarity with the music, anything's fair game.

In Defense of "Interiors"

I've put off seeing Woody Allen's Interiors for years, largely because I had the misfortune of sitting through September and Shadows and Fog almost immediately after their respective release dates. My hesitation has always echoed the line leveled by the film's critics: that Woody Allen's dramas are essentially Bergman-lite, that they deal with WASPish characters, and that they are about as icy as a weekend spent in a meat locker.

So it was a bit of a surprise to see that my notions were dispelled when finally seeing the film. Interiors is actually more inspired by Chekhov than Bergman and is more realist than the film's detractors give it credit for. Somehow, Allen succeeded in keeping the whiny quotient of his characters' neuroses to a minimum. There is a tattered sadness to nearly every character, with the seams showing through in small moments (one character's unexpected resort to cocaine use, the meticulous way that Geraldine Page gaff-tapes the windows before her suicide attempt, and the savagery beneath failed novelist Richard Jordan's frustrations). Allen was wise enough to put his characters' troubles into perspective by profiling the family, giving the audience an idea about where his characters received their misconceived sense of entitlement, whether it's through E.G. Marshall's desperate hookup with Maureen Stapleton (who sizzles in a red dress) and a harrowing revelation at a dinner table that is as tactless as it is selfish. In fact, if you look carefully at the nuanced behavior, the film transcends its classist overtones. It might even be viewed as a devastating assault on affluence, elitism, and the myth of self-entitlement.

There are, predictably enough, three sisters. The oldest played by Diane Keaton is a poet of some note. She's married to Jordan. And during one sequence before a party, we get a real sense of the shared defeatist attitude they have in common. There's Flyn (Kristin Griffith), an actress near the end of a career riding on good looks, reduced to playing in dreadful movies filmed in the Rocky Mountains rather than Acapulco. Finally, there's Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), who floats from one job to another and hasn't figured out a game plan for what she wants. I particularly liked how Allen used Joey's look to play with Hurt's strengths at playing such a bitter character. Hurt's small face hides behind enormous glasses, with perfectly curved hair detracting from precious physiognomic real estate space. It spells out Joey's inability to reveal anything about herself -- not even to her Marxist filmmaking boyfriend (Sam Waterson, who is remarkably impassive about his work). There's one shot where Hurt is drinking a glass of wine and the glass nearly drowns out her features. It's a telling statement on where Joey's heading in life, particularly since she's pregnant and the film doesn't reveal whether she aborts her child or not.

All of these life struggles could have easily been transposed to another income bracket. But the cruel thing about Interiors is that money will always bail these characters out, forcing them to fall into the same cycles of unhappiness again and again. There will be plenty of money for therapy, for lean times when the poetry isn't paying, and for Joey to waste time as she finds yet another job she's not satisfied with. One might view Interiors as a stern rebuke for a life both unappreciated and without any sense of self-sufficiency. Yet it's a tribute to Allen's gifts as a filmmaker that these themes are so masterfully kept underneath the action.

Gordon Willis' photography is coordinated to profile the environment over the characters. Two sisters walk along the beach in a tracking shot, but their actions are obstructed by a fence which meshes out their conversation. The apartments and houses we see are ironically palatial. They look so clean and so constantly refurnished that it's a wonder how anyone can live in them, much less feel comfortable in them. It's a credit to Mel Bourne's production design prowess that these airy confines feel so sterile. These are Pottery Barn nightmares well before Pottery Barn. That matriarch Geraldine Page is an interior designer is almost a sick joke for how willfully hindered these characters are.

Watching Interiors reminded me of what a great filmmaker Woody Allen once was. It took considerable chutzpah for Allen to followup his greatest commercial success, Annie Hall, with a film that dared to penetrate the duplicities of passivity and excess. Interiors may very well be one of his most underrated films, much as those who follow Bob Rafelson often overlook The King of Marvin Gardens when considering his ouevre.

Afternoon Headlines

• The illustrious Mark Sarvas has served up spectacular coverage of the L.A. Times Book Festival. He even makes a noble attempt to understand Steve Almond. We also wish Mr. Sarvas the best wishes on his new reign as a teacher.
• A new novel penned by the late Park Tae-won has been found. The new book's called Flag of Motherland and is the first novel Park wrote before crossing the border during the Korean War.
• Arianna Huffington has launched a group blog. Alarmingly, Michael Medved is involved.
• Why publicist Shawn Le thought we'd be interested in this thing is a mystery. But we can't resist exposing yet another reason why James Patterson should be avoided at all costs. We thought at first that it was an obscene joke, but Patterson has devised a blog for his new book, Maximum Ride. This dreadful tie-in can be accessed through James Patterson's official site. The novel involves genetically engineered killing machines hunting creatures who are 98% human, 2% bird. A sample entry reads: "It’s finally starting to look like spring and the flying is great! It’s still a little chilly but there’s no better skyline to glide over then New York! Angel, Gassy, nudge and even Fang is in a good mood! We all want to fly, unfortunately all the regular people are looking up and enjoying the sun - not good for 6 winged kids trying to keep a low profile."
• Steve Stern doesn't get any respect, and he's been turning out literary fiction for 25 years.
• Apparently, the twelve men who have walked the moon are "an unusually dull lot."
• Ever since she appeared in The Incredibles, Sarah Vowell now has to contend with little girls coming up to her at book signings. At least she hasn't been showered with spare security blankets.
• The casting of Harry Potter's girlfriend has unleashed a good deal of racism on the Internet.
• Two public libraries in the UK reopened with new buildings. Guess what? The number of book loans went up.

Virulent Indeed!

Graham has the Mike Oldfield review to end all Mike Oldfield reviews. (via Speedy Snail)

Paul Maliszewski Update

Moby Lives' latest column features an interview with Paul Maliszewski. Maliszewski reveals that he didn't talk to NYT reporter Alex Mindlin because "something wasn't right" and clarifies his motivations behind the Bookforum article, pointing out that his interest was more in exposing the exploitation of Chabon's fabricated tale.

N+1 also weighs in, taking an in-depth look at the effect of Chabon's lecture.

We're the Dumbest Folks in Our Neighborhood and It's All Because We Missed Last Week's "Lost"

Steven Johnson says that television makes you smarter:

During its 44 minutes -- a real-time hour, minus 16 minutes for commercials -- the episode connects the lives of 21 distinct characters, each with a clearly defined ''story arc,'' as the Hollywood jargon has it: a defined personality with motivations and obstacles and specific relationships with other characters. Nine primary narrative threads wind their way through those 44 minutes, each drawing extensively upon events and information revealed in earlier episodes. Draw a map of all those intersecting plots and personalities, and you get structure that -- where formal complexity is concerned -- more closely resembles ''Middlemarch'' than a hit TV drama of years past like ''Bonanza.''

The important distinction is that Mary Anne Evans didn't have anyone as obnoxious as Kiefer Sutherland in mind when penning her tale. Nor did she throw in absurd subplots involving explosions, torture and the obligatory Kiefer scowl. If Jack Bauer is a "personality," then Best of the Best 2 is last century's answer to Thackeray's The History of Henry Esmond.

A Message for Oprah

Dear Oprah:

Some writers have kneeled down in front of you and asked you to kiss their rings. They have implored you to revive the Oprah Book Club that many book lovers grew to tolerate in much the same way that a seven year old contends with lima beans. That is to say with obscene crying, childish temper tantrums, and an order from flatmates to go to their rooms without supper. Clearly, a woman of your intelligence can understand that this is not how grown adults should react to books.

A cursory examination of the signatures reveals that nearly all of these writers are midlisters hoping for a big break.

That's certainly their right. The publishing industry is often a ruthless and backbreaking milieu. And many of these talented writers should be granted ample compensation and greater sales for the work they put out.

But with nearly every selection you picked, your book club championed safe middlebrow titles that avoided the realities of life and were largely devoid of literary experimentation. They soothed rather than provoked. They spoon-fed readers instead of challenging them. While that might go down well over coffee and pastries in a New Hampshire suburban home, if people are going to throw down their hard-earned money for a book they'll never read, certainly their money should be siphoned off to people like David Markson, Kazuo Ishiguro, William T. Vollman, Stephen Dixon, Jeanette Winterson, A.L. Kennedy or Gilbert Sorrentino.

So I beg you, if you have any sense of decency at all, not to revive your book club.

While your intentions were certainly noble, let's face the facts. You gave idiot novelists like Wally Lamb careers. You gave exposure to the likes of Jonathan Franzen. While I don't hate Franzen's novels as strenuously as some, it is now impossible for any eager reader to open up an issue of the New Yorker without stumbling upon one of Franzen's whiny male menopause essays. Likewise, Barbara Kingsolver might never have been allowed to put out a book of essays laden with generalizations, had not The Poisonwood Bible been named an OBC book choice. In fact, it might just be possible that you've turned more novelists into essayists because of your book club. Which seems a contrary notion to the purpose of promoting fiction.

Without your imprimatur, I think it's safe to say that White Oleander wouldn't have been turned into a silly movie. And Toni Morrison, Oprah? Morrison won a Nobel in 1993. She didn't need your help. Where were you for Octavia Butler? Or Sheneska Jackson? Or Ann Petry? Or Dorothy West, who was the last surviving Harlem Renaissance writer?

While I realize that you have a lovable and tightly controlled image to promulgate to your viewers, has it ever occurred to you to shake things up by suggesting a book that might challenge them? I think we can both agree that not even you, Oprah, would go that far.

So please stick with these cute little classics (Anna Karenina, One Hundred Years of Solitude, et al.) that anyone even remotely familiar with literature has read already. If Americans want to have their books, their life choices and their day-to-day life programmed by you and that smug Dr. Phil guy, then clearly they need you to help them grope along the hard passageway of life.

Besides, dull Oprah-style books like The Kite Runner and The Red Tent seem to be selling like hotcakes and being selected for book clubs regardless of your input. Is it possible, Oprah, that your services are no longer requried?

Very truly yours,

Edward Champion

[UPDATE: More responses from Alex Good, Scott Esposito, Frances Dinkelspiel, Bud Parr, M.J. Rose, and Wendi Kaufman.]

Support Sacramento Punk

The Secretions, a long-time punk staple of Sacramento (and part of the Q Street Scene that I was acquainted with back in the day), will be playing at Bottom of the Hill on May 4. Tickets are only $7. Other shows are planned for Fresno, Ventura, Tuscon, New Mexico, Texas, Las Vegas and Reno. Mickie Rat's a good guy. Dr. Mabuse says check him out.

We'd Hate IKEA Too, But We Have an Uncontrollable Urge to Build Things That Remind Us of Tinker-Toys. Damn Swedes Exploiting Our Childhood Memories!

Charles endures IKEA:

The website, the catalogue, and the floor model were all carefully labelled "King." They most definitely did NOT say "King if you MacGyver two together with some sort of ghetto-ass connector." I'm literally turning red as I give the Socialist bastard the all-American one-finger salute, walking back to the checkstand, muttering under my breath that I will never, ever buy another Ericsson product again, on principle.

Tanenhaus Watch: April 24, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

I didn't receive so much as a thank you from Mr. Tanenhaus for the Fat Witch shipment I sent him last week. That's okay. I'm sure he's a busy guy.

Even so, if this week's NYTBR is any indication of things to come, it's unlikely that Tanenhaus will be getting brownies again anytime soon. This week, it's business as usual. Tanenhaus has perhaps outdone himself in the irrelevancy department by including this unpardonable two-page review of the Jane Fonda memoir. Whatever your thoughts on Jane Fonda, it's safe to say that she's no Vanessa Redgrave or Peter Ustinov. Nor does she need any further press from the considerable largesse eked out by Random House. Why the NYTBR would see fit to depart from the momentum it built up with last week's brownie victory is a mystery.

I think I've been a little too easy on Sam. To rectify any miscalculations, in addition to the three trusty tests, I've introduced the BROWNIE BITCHSLAP FACTOR. From now on, should Tanenhaus include content that doesn't befit the Sunday books section of a major newspaper, he will have additional points deducted against him.

So without further ado, the gloves come off:

BROWNIE BITCHSLAP FACTOR: Jane Fonda? Wasting Maureen Dowd's time? What were you thinking, Sam? SLAP! (Minus .6 points.)

BROWNIE BITCHSLAP FACTOR: What the hell do Sex in the City-style self-help books have to do with literature? SLAP! (Minus .8 points. Introduction of David Orr column = +.8 bitchslap handicap. End result: 0)

Onto the tests:

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction Reviews: 1 2-page comics overview (half comics, half nonfiction, 1 page calculated), 1 page "On Poetry," 1 1-1/2 page review, 1 half-page Crime roundup, 1 one-page Fiction Chronicle. (Total books: 11. Total pages: 5.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 1 2-page review, 1 2-page comics overview (half comics, half nonfiction, 1 page calculated), 1 page and a half review, 3 one-page reviews, 4 half-page reviews. (Total books: 11. Total pages. 9.5.)

Out of this week's 13.5 pages of review coverage, a mere 37% has been devoted to fiction. While the introdution of David Orr's poetry column (set to appear "every four to six weeks") represents a long-term commitment that is better than nothing, and while some graphic novel coverage is better than nothing (of which more anon), "better than nothing" is hardly satisfactory. These are throwaway gestures which demonstrate Tanenhaus's almost total disinterest in current literature.

That a Jane Fonda memoir would get six times the column inches of a new Donald E. Westlake novel illustrates that either Tanenhaus hasn't learned that Barbarella is a crapppy movie that most people outgrow before 25 or that, popular writers such as Alexander McCall Smith aside, genre ghettoization is all part of the program.

In fact, if you haven't been keeping score, it looks like Tanenhaus will never pass the column-inch test (which requires a 48% minimum to fiction and poetry). The last six weeks show that, far from featuring "all the news that's fit to print," Sam has shown again and again that even compressed fiction reviews get fewer column inches than the latest political snoozefest:

March 20, 2005: 44%
March 27, 2005: 41%
April 3, 2005: 32%
April 10, 2005: 34.7%
April 17, 2005: 44.4%
April 24, 2005: 37%

So the question now is whether the reader lowers the bar or that the reader demands greater accountability. From where I'm sitting, the choice is obvious.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

Two women review fiction. And, in fact, the longest review goes to Janet Malcolm, who reviews Alexander McCall Smith's latest from a gender and biblical perspective. But Malcolm's comparison to Twain based off of five formally placed words is dubious at best and she never quite follows through on her thesis. I've encountered the sentence "I do not think so" used in a humorous literary context 300 times in the past two years -- perhaps fifty times alone in Susanna Clarke's overrated book Jonathan Strange & Mrs. Norrell. But Twain's irony involved something craftier than a tonal rejoinder (think Huckleberry Finn deciding to save Jim).

As any liberal arts major knows, irony itself involves the disparity between what is said and what is meant. And the excerpt Malcolm quotes two people who are clueless about Freud. But that's not necessarily ironic. It's endearing and colloquial, and it offers a particular perspective to the reader. But methinks Malcolm's overstating the case here. Besides, as any good patriot knows, irony died sometime after September 11.

And was it really necessary to announce not one, but two articles that confirmed Smith's subtext of AIDs in Botswana? Article clippings might get you a gold star from a junior high school history teacher (perhaps even a hug and a "way to go" in the remarks section of a report card). But in the journalism world, there's a little thing called an established fact (i.e., something that anyone can find out in thirty seconds) that allows an editor to cut down a rambling review for more pressing matters - like, say, more fiction coverage.

Beyond this and Marilyn Stasio's mystery column, there's the aforementioned Jane Fonda review by Maureen Dowd and three other women covering nonfiction coverage (among eleven reviews). Women get disregarded once again. Not a surprise.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

Eugenia Zukerman's take on a Stradivari memoir is the kind of unexpected arts book coverage that's rare these days in the NYTBR Beyond this, most of the coverage has been delegated to Gray Lady staffers.

Wake me up when the revolution starts.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

Hey, John Hodgman, get a clue about comics. For the record:

• There's a whole litany of independent comics out there that don't involve superheroes. Get schooled.
• Not a single person I know of has ever been fearful of a Chris Ware panel. Ware is a fantastic artist, but his work is hardly that "of a strange alien visitor to our world." It's sui generis. Perhaps it might seem alien to someone unfamiliar with comics.
• If Peter Bagge is "new" to you, then I'm almost positive you've never set foot in a comics store.
• What kind of comics columnist confesses that he's completely ignorant about the medium he's writing about? (See mention of Michael Allred's The Golden Plates for specific sentence.)

If Tanenhaus is smart, he will sack John Hodgman on the spot. If it can be believed, Hodgman comes across more ignorant than Chip McGrath did last year. If Tanenhaus is going to offer comics coverage, then he needs someone actually acquainted on the subject. At least Chip McGrath was smart enough to hire Nick Hornby.

Yes, kids, you too can become a successful self-publisher. All you have to do is shoot your lover's wife, get national press for your story, and then you'll stand a remote chance of yokels looking for some titilation who might just remember your name buying your memoir! Since when did the NYTBR become an overflow depository for silly Writer's Digest articles that encourage amateurs to waste their precious savings on delusions?

This week's Times staffer golden watch review? James Atlas.

CONCLUSIONS:

This is a first. Tanenhaus earned a negative score this week. Presumably, this means that he'll return some of the brownies back to us. But we'd prefer if he actually clued in and amped up the coverage.

Brownie Points Denied: 3
Brownie Points Earned: 0
Brownie Bitchslap Factor: -.6 points
TOTAL BROWNIE POINTS REQUIRED FOR BROWNIE DELIVERY: 2
TOTAL BROWNIE POINTS EARNED: -.6 points

Josh Rouse Must Be Stopped

"It's exactly the same," he says with perfect confidence. "Why would we change anything?" -- Rolling Stone

Mellow soulless pop has a new name to add to its limitless ledger. If my predictions are correct, within eighteen months, Josh Rouse will smear every Pottery Barn bedroom with his treacly ballads (too many of which reference a television blaring in the background) and have every tone-deaf yuppie tapping their toes to Rouse's distinctive vacuity. Bad enough that there's barely any edge to this guy. Try seeing this guy live.

On the basis of critical praise, a handful of low-key tracks, a reported "influence by the Cure and the Smiths," and accidentally getting Rouse mixed up with somebody else, I scored nonrefundable tickets for the MSS and me. This was all part of a strange plan that involved seeing five live shows in two weeks.

But as I listened to Rouse's catalog to prep myself for the concert, I realized that I had made a colossal mistake.

Consider Rouse's latest album, Nashville. The lyrics and title of "Winter in the Hamptons" might mean something if you have expendable income. But its ba-ba-bas and its throwaway arpeggios make it an endurance test for anyone who enjoys being tousled around a tad. "Middle School Frown" is poetic only if you consider repetitive assaults on the counterculture and banal memories of 1983 the mark of a genius.

Rouse has no stage presence to speak of. He performs his songs exactly as they sound on his albums, which is a piss-poor reason to see anybody live. During one moment, he tried to get the audience to bray along with him, but only succeeded in drawing up a whispery and uninvolved response. And these were fans of his music, no less. In fact, Rouse is so rigid and formulaic that he's even outlined the stage plot on his site. Presumably to aid some real estate broker in the Marina talking about her concertgoing experience the next morning, so she'll have something to refer to just before she heads off to the cafe and orders an overpriced cafe au lait.

Rouse's music was so soporific that I was grateful to be awakened by the sound of a motorcycle outside. Thank goodness the Fiery Furnaces are coming into town next week. After experiencing this dull singer live, I almost want to get into a bloody brawl just to remind myself that life is more than whining about some girl you didn't have the guts to ask out.

Doctor Who -- "The Aliens of London"

Aliens invade London, there's a military presence around the United Kingdom, but there's no UNIT commander (where's the Brigadier?). Downing Street is easily infiltrated by aliens despite stern security measure after 9/11? This isn't Doctor Who. This is bad science fiction. If I wanted another crude monster flick, I'd watch a Jack Arnold movie.

The Concertgoing Experience After 30

When you're thirty, the wiggle room for live shows narrows -- even if you've devoted enough to hit the gym and keep a svelte figure. If you're like me, sometimes when attending a show, you end up discovering that you're the oldest guy on the floor. Case in point: When Tom and I went to go catch Less Than Jake a few years ago, the age disparity was so great that we felt that we needed to join the AARP. I won't mention our humiliating efforts in the mosh pit, the subsequent huffing and puffing and unexpected aches, and the "We're too old!"/"We're outta shape!" sentiments which followed. Mabuse's Special Squeeze (hereinafter "MSS") reports that she once joined a mosh pit and the pit of young 'uns actually moved three feet away from her!

Never has the silent pressure to get a Botox injection at the ripe young age of thirty been so rigidly enforced then at a live show. The stares of youth are perversely fascinating. They seem to think that we old 'uns are somehow encroaching upon their turf. When in fact, it's likelier that we old 'uns have been following the career trajectory of a band since these young whipper-snappers were in diapers.

Despite all this, I haven't completely given up live music. At least not yet. Because beyond the bands in question, concerts offer fantastic venues for people watching. You get your 35/17s (a bald man of 35 trying desperately to pad out his manhood by going out with someone who is not yet of drinking age, probably because he can't find a woman within his age bracket to go see the show with and standing in the will-call line alone to collect two tickets is too humiliating). You have the couples who are often perplexed: the late twentysomething who has brought along a heavy coat and a bag, while her date is both too clueless or cocky to point her to the coat check or make her feel comfortable. And it amazes me to see what a 19 year old kid whips up from the images he conjures from the 1980s. And believe me, they're the wrong images altogether. Last night, while catching Dogs Die In Hot Cars, the MSS and I were amazed to see that neon socks and big hair had made such a comeback. These kids were probably spermatoza when this nonsense came around the first time.

Then there are the iconoclasts: people who watch these shows alone and prefer nothing in the way of human involvement. Say hello or buy them a drink and they'll give you a scowl. In my experience, the more mellow the band, the more extreme the iconoclast's reaction.

But the folks I really dig are the fiftysomethings who rock out with the music regardless of the chronological chasm. I once saw a couple in their sixties dancing to Super Diamond on the second floor of the Great American Music Hall and it seemed to me a fantastic way to spend one's autumn years.

Blasphemous A Definite Code Word for "Humorless"

Moby Lives has additional leads on the "blasphemous emails" that Dave Eggers was complaining about. In a thread on Radosh, excerpts from The Pearl Files have been posted. Scott McLemee has more.

SF Sightings -- Wlliam T. Vollman

It was the end of another sunny day in the Haight -- the perfect weather to get acclimatized for a journey into the dark and depressing world of William T. Vollman. He was reading at the Booksmith. I met up early with Tito and Scott for a little bit of collective preparation.

Scott and I weren't too sure that our sake martinis would cut the mustard with a man of Vollman's temperament. Were our beverages masculine and intellectual enough? More importantly, were they violent enough? Why not Molotovs?

It was Tito who was the smart one, settling upon a beer. Not that Vollman was kicking it there with us, but we had taken a good long look at the publicity photo in our collectively memory and formed a few theories about the guy.

Was Vollman the 21st century answer to Hemingway? Would he speak calmly? Would he do anything insane? Would he fire his starting pistol or start howling like a mad wolf at the moon?

As it turned out, he didn't do any of these things.

By the time we got to the Booksmith, it was nearly SRO. There was a crowd of about 40 sitting in the chairs: a lot of twentysomethings with a few punks and bespectacled intellectual types -- one bald and with a ponytail. A few minutes into the reading, folks were standing near the stacks. At the stroke of seven, there was a sudden hush that lasted about thirty seconds before the din of conversation resumed. One thing about Vollman's fan base: they were punctilious in their temperament. Vollman, it should be noted, is a staple at the Booksmith. In fact, he's on record as the author with the most appearances.

In my mad rush to get there on time, I had forgotten to bring paper. To my considerable astonishment, Scott offered to rip a few pages from his Moleskine notebook. "Are you sure?" I asked. Scott ensured me that he was sitting on a huge stack of them. My ethical qualms aside, the rip served as an appropriately menacing prelude to the man himself.

Vollman was dressed in a slighly off-white shirt, a vest with rectilinear elements of red and black, and grey trousers. His spiky bangs looked as if they had been self-cut. And while this may be stating the obvious, Vollman wasn't much of a smiler.

Vollman did this swishy head swirl just after being introduced. I wondered if it was the recent stroke or just a warmup exercise that Vollman might have picked up while researching his lengthy work on violence -- perhaps some Visigoth calisthenic exercise to be performed just before a continental invasion. He then announced that Europe Central, the book he was there to promote, was "a real downer."

This book emerged out of wanting to understand the enemy. It's composed of 37 tales, many of them involving dichotomies, predominantly comparing the Soviet Union with Germany.

Vollman read two stories. The first one, "Zoya," dealt with the infamous Soviet propaganda figure and was inspired by the film loops of concentration camp that Vollman observed as a boy. The second one contrasted the life of a Nazi with the common idea of assigning blame to others during the Nuremberg trial. Vollman read these stories very precisely, adopting a monotone timbre that resembled the voice of Stan Lee to some extent.

Vollman answered some questions about politics. He said that we weren't Nazis yet, but pointed out how Stalingrad had been demoralizing for the Germans and that the sense of safety under Nazi Germany was very similar to the one currently in place within today's government. He suggested that Arab Americans would be locked away without a second thought if there were more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

A young writer asked Vollman how often he writes. He says that he writes every day, ideally from his first cup of coffee until when he goes to bed. When he gets stuck on something, he generally works on something else. He asked the writer in return how often she wrote. She said three hours a week. He said, "That's good."

Vollman's currently working on a nonfiction project interviewing poor people. He's specfiically interested in how other people respond to why they're poor. Asked about the type of books he's read for research, Vollman noted that he had read a lot of books on Hitler and Stalin. He also felt that there should be a major history on the Iran-Iraq War and that, in many ways, it was as significant as World War II.

I asked him a question about how others edit his voluminous work and whether Rising Up and Rising Down had any effect on him getting published. He said that when he was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, he was the flavor of the minute. Now, he's the flavor of last century. He expressed great gratitude to McSweeney's for publishing him. Interestingly enough, Ecco, who was one of the many publishers who rejected his full-length work, offered him quite a bit of money for the abridged version.

Vollman clearly wanted to split, presumably to get home and start writing again. After about 45 minutes, with his constant query "Are there any more questions?" he set himself up at the signing table and was watching the clock to skedaddle out of there.

Did Vollman live up to our expectations? The consensus seemed no. His answers were terse and he didn't really like to elaborate on anything. But with such a remarkable array of work to read through, the books stand well on their own.

[UPDATE: Rashomon's in action. Scott insists that Vollman wore jeans. But my photograph of Vollman came out blurry. Perhaps Tito will be the one with the answer. Tito, thankfully, captured the musical angle.]

[RELATED: For additional perspective, don't miss the Rake's evening with Vollman back in December or Ron Hogan's interview with Vollman from 2000.]

The Three Amigos Play Rashomon

Tonight, at the Booksmith, Scott, Tito and I will be there to check out William T. Vollman. The event is at 7PM. This is the same place that Vollman once fired a starter pistol. I'll be taking notes and so will the other boys. But if you can make it, please feel free to say hello.

Items

• Anne Rice has put up several homes for sale. If this is a sign that Rice is hard up for cash, I sure as hell hope that she doesn't end up tripling her output.
• Apparently, there are substantial dangers in recommending books. Geotectonic plates have been known to shift. Tsunamis have spontaneously erupted in Middle America shortly after someone recommended The Kite Runner for the 892nd time in one day. Remember, kids, don't recommend books while driving.
• One more reason to love Alice Munro: she's behind some eco-friendly publishing. That's great, but I have to ask. Wouldn't she have better results if she stopped writing stories altogether?
• A Vietnam vet spit tobacco juice at Jane Fonda during a book signing, calling it a "debt of honor." I'd have something to say about how little courage can be gauged when spitting in the face of a 68 year old woman, but I'm a little too creeped out that there are guys out there who use tobacco juice as currency.
• Book sales are out of control for the new pope. Publishers have been quietly urging the Holy See to elect a "second-string pope" so that they can double their sales.
• This week is Robert Penn Warren's 100th birthday.
• The LBC gets more momentum from the Book Babes? Huh?
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been named the new Pulitzer Chair.
• And a hearty congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Hogan!

Dream of the Blog Room

Local writer Michelle Richmond has a new blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, Michelle!

McSweeney's Newsletter Followup

We've just heard from an anonymous reader concerning "The Pearl Report," the email newsletter that was apparently written by Paul Maliszewski. Again, if anyone has any additional leads on what content was featured within "The Pearl Report," then we will certainly post them.

The reader writes:

Forgive the nom de plume but I'm avoiding the Wrath of Dave. In late 2001 I (and apparently a number of people whose names were culled from the McSweeney's e list) began receiving, about two or three times a month, emails with the subject heading "The Pearl Report," signed Allan Pearl. (This is the name of Eugene Levy's character in "Waiting For Guffman" but I don't know if that was the reference intended by "Pearl.") The epistles purported to relate various gossipy tidbits, mostly about Tom Beller and the three Jonathans - Ames, Franzen, Lethem. (Though I think Chabon and maybe even Eggers figured in a few items.)

To give you an example - one item, as memory serves, alleged that J Lethem, tiring of the effort involved in signing a ltd edition in the late '90s, rounded up a young, unknown friend of his named Colson Whitehead to forge his signature on the books, and that these forgeries could be identified by Whitehead's having written a microscopic "CW" in the corner of each leaf in which he wrote Lethem's name. (The joke may not be obvious to Dave but I can see it - such a book, thanks to its Whitehead connection, would be worth more than the usual ltd Lethem. But I suppose Lethem would have been unhappy about the allegation - since he's the former rare-books specialist at Moe's in Berkeley, this would indeed be rather a slur.) But more often the items were of the Tom-was-seen-with-Parker-the-other-night kind, rather harmless.

After several months of such hijinks, circa the spring of 2002, a young lady came up to Ames at a reading in darkest Brooklyn, informed him that she was "Pearl's" ex-girlfriend, and spilled the beans. Ames told Dave. At which point Dave did the stuff that makes him so eminently qualified to replace the 'zinger-man at the Holy Office, now that the dude's moved on up.

After this all went down, I did some Googling for a while to see what turned up online, but there never was a thing. Such was life in the dim, dark days before litblogs. As to where the Pearl Reports could be found now - maybe the deepest, darkest recesses of the cast-aside laptops of the Jonathans could yield some answers.

Please Welcome Der Furhrer Your New Pope

It Ain't Exactly Mailer-Vidal, But We'll Bite.

Jonathan Safran Foer, in a post that is likely fake unless Mr. Foer would like to corroborate it, has responded to Steve Almond's takedown:

Me and you should hang out, really. With my ironic-ironic-ironic-ironic pretentiousness and profound postmodern invulnerability and your high-school / freshman-year-in-college ironic, I'm-not-pretentiousness-because-I-am-aware-that-I-might-be-pretentious-and-also-because-when-I-feel-that-I'm-being-pretentious-I-go-ahead-and-say-that-I'm-being-pretentious (and I use a lot of cliches in my language, just like on TV and in Hollywood movies) we can be really profound and postmodern and probably we can achieve true art really quickly, in like two minutes, and then after we can eat hot dogs. We can eat nuts from those profoundly sorrowful Nuts 4 Nuts people.

(Thanks, Chelsea!)

Interviews A Go-Go

As Maud has noted, the 1970s archive of the Paris Review DNA of Literature Archive is up. While Maud's dancing over Didion, I'm sinking my teeth into the conversations with Anthony Burgess, who talks about Joyce at length, and Stanley Elkin, who notes that he had "a year of study in bed," reading continuously for a year and staying in bed, only getting up to teach his classes.

And speaking of interviews, Birnbaum is back, this time talking with Jonathan Safran Foer.

Virtual Sweatshop

While it's very nice to see coverage of the book world online, the Village Voice does raise an interesting point about Kevin Smokler's Virtual Book Tour.

Smokler charges $1,500 for a one-day tour, allowing an author to make the rounds on several other blogs. (A three-day intensive will set you back about $3,000.) Smokler pockets the money from the publisher, and doesn't distribute any of it among the blogs who essentially turn themselves into uncritical advertisers of an author. Instead, he offers a free copy of the book for each participating site, something that any legitimate litblog can obtain for free from a publisher (and from the publisher's end, a comp book actually costs much less as a publicity item than the supplemental income that lands in Smokler's lap).

"Paying them would open up an ethical hornet's nest," says Smokler, "since there's no way we can expect bloggers to be impartial if we're paying them." (Emphasis added.)

I have to question the ethics of this. If you sublet an apartment to someone, you expect the tenant to pay. If you sell magazine space to an advertiser, you expect the advertiser to pay for the column inches. So if Smokler wants to turn blogs into a PR machine, why then should the bloggers who let their spaces not be entitled to collect?

Beyond the troubling notion that those who participate in the Virtual Book Tour are no different from the people who walk around the beach in a Nike T-shirt, because they are apparently precluded from commenting on the weaknesses of a particular book (partiality or impartiality, I've yet to see anything critical on the various VBTs), there's the seedy notion that Smokler is running a small-time sweatshop. Surely, the bloggers who put in the time to read the book and who style content to a particular author are entitled to earn money for their labor. An advertisement is an advertisement is an advertisement, even if it's for a book that happens to enjoyable.

That's why I'm proud to be part of the Litblog Co-Op. You see, if certain members don't enjoy a book, they won't be nearly as hindered from voicing their thoughts and opinions. The LBC exists for the love, not the money.

And, no, you couldn't pay this site any amount of money to shift our content to an advertiser. The coverage here remains independent and unsullied. And that includes not littering our posts with Amazon links and actually attributing the original bloggers who cover a story. Anything less than this strikes me as downright parasitical.

[UPDATE: Scott and Bud have more thoughts on how "parasitical" the litblogosphere can be. And I should point out that not a single contributor to Bookslut (including me) has received a cash payment for their work. Not that I mind, but if that isn't being parasitical, I don't know what is.]

[UPDATE 2: Jessa has emailed me to tell me that Bookslut does pay for features.]

Add "Humorless" to E-----' CV

As Beatrice has pointed out, there's more to the Michael Chabon hoax (profiled in the current issue of Bookforum) then meets the eye. It seems that He Who Shall Not Be Named fired Paul Maliszewski from McSweeeney's for sending out a fabricated email containing lies about various writers. E----- claims that it wasn't funny. I've tried Googling around for the particular email, but I've had no luck. Later today, I'm going to pick up the latest issue of Bookforum to see if I can get more answers from the complete Maliszewski article. But if any of the "hundreds of people around New York" (perhaps regular Reluctant readers?) have the email in question, I'd certainly be curious if the newsletter was a funny Kaufmanesque exercise that went over E-----' oversensitive head or a genuine atrocity.

[UPDATE: I've emailed Maliszewski and if he has any thoughts on this article, I'll post them with his consent. I should point out that NYT reporter Alex Mindlin tried getting in touch with Maliszewski by email and phone, but couldn't get through. So presumably Maliszewski is either deliberately remaining silent or has sequestered himself from humanity. Whatever the case, these pages remain open to him.]

[UPDATE 2: Maliszewski says he has no specific comment on the Eggers comments and directs all curious individuals to his Bookforum article. He writes that it's "a serious investigation and a fair piece of journalism and is based on my extensive interviews with Chabon, two people at Nextbook, and several members of the audience. It would have been nice to let all that work do the talking, but that doesn't seem to be possible." Maliszewski has talked with Dennis Loy Johnson about the Chabon scam and, as soon Dennis has his column finished, I'll link to it.]

RIP Marla Ruzicka

Activist Marla Ruzicka has died. She was only 28. Had it not been for Ruzicka's efforts, Iraqi families who lost relatives courtesy of U.S. bombs might not have been compensated.

King of All Media Makers?

As a DV/Photoshop/Flash/Director geek, I have to say that the Adobe/Macromedia merger may be the best way to go after Apple. Provided of course the world has need for a vector-based NLE.

Lost Texts Rediscovered

Thanks to infrared technology, we may be on the verge of uncovering lost Greek and Roman writings. This is truly exciting news. There are writings by Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod. There may even be a few lost Christian gospels, including the lost page that says, "All characters and events are fictitious. Any resemblance is purely coincidental."

The Author Out of Spae

If you're still wincing over the LOVECRAFT SUCKS bandwagon that seems to be rolling through town these days and need some more things to read, as the Literary Saloon has pointed out and some people I know will peruse with great interest, John Banville weighs in on the upcoming Houellebecq Lovecraft bio. Banville sics the dog twice, so to speak, on Lovecraft's eccentric spelling, but spends more time trying to understand how much of an influence Howard Philips was on Houellebecq.

Items

• Dan Wickett serves up another panel -- this time, one involving novelists Quinn Dalton and Tayari Jones talking with Ms. Tangerine Muumuu and Gwenda Bond.
• If you haven't checked out Fourteen Hills, you're missing out on a very fine literary biannual. The biannual is produced by the San Francisco State University Creative Writing Department. The latest issue (Winter/Sprnig 2005) features contributions from Michelle Tea and Sam Hurwitt, a very strange letter story from Mat Snapp, a lengthy tale from Nona Caspers, and even an epigraph from Walter Benjamin.
• The gang at Gigantic Graphic Novels have compiled the first eight issues of Rick Spears and Rob G's Teenagers from Mars into a trade paperback. It hit the stands in February. I'm not sure if these two have been inspired by the Misfits song or not, but I'd describe the comic as an odd cross between Derek Kirk Kim and Fight Club. In a world close to ours, teenagers get pummeled by superstore goons, grave robbing runs rampant, and there's a strange Moral Majority-style crackdown on comic books. The book has a punkish manga feel, existing in a parallel universe that perhaps has more parallels to this one than we realize.
• You have to hand it to the London Times for class: "Biker chick and lecturer join race for Orange Prize." I guess if you're a woman who bikes, you're a "chick." But if you're a lecturer, there's no need to single someone out by their gender for a gender-based award.
• Demonstrating once again that lucidity is not his strong suit, Michael Crichton thinks that people concerned with global warming are comparable to Nazi eugenicists. Sure, Mikey. Just about every environmentalist I know is planning to throw Republicans into the crematorium.
• China has banned a novel by Yan Lianke because it satirizes Mao's slogan, "Serve the People."
• Rich slackers can be found all over New York.

We've Never Even Set Foot in Dixieland. Presumably, This Explains Our CCR Fixation.

What kind of American English do you speak?

75% General American English
15% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
5% Yankee
0% Midwestern

Tanenhaus Watch: April 17, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction Reviews: 1 - 2 1/2 page cover essay on The Outlaw Bible fo American Literature, 1 two-page review on Lovecraft, 2 one-page reviews, 1 one-page "Fiction Chronicle" roundup. (Total books: 8. Total space: 7.5 pages.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 1 - 1 1/2 page review, 7 one-page reviews, 1 half-page review, 1 Lovecraft inset (.4 pages). (Total books: 12. Total space: 9.4 pages.)

I'm truly tempted to twist the definitions of the test here. Editor Sam Tanenhaus has not only presented us with more substantive fiction coverage than the norm (two reviews of fiction that are at least two pages long and that aren't written by war hawks), but he's also thrown in an unflinching essay about Hunter S. Thompson. The rugged spirit is certainly welcome, although I don't believe it will last more than a week.

There's Lovecraft, Joyce Carol Oates' nonfiction compilation, Ishiguro, Poppy Z. Brite, and even an essay by Salman Rushdie. For the first time in recent memory, Tanenhaus has included supplemental essays that actually have something to do with books. Shocking.

But while this week's fiction coverage is variegated, we're still dealing with a fiction shortfall. Only 44.4% of the coverage is fiction. This falls a few percentage points of the 48% minimum required. And from a book tally standpoint, one need only observe the table of contents to see that the nonfiction is twice as long as the fiction.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Substantive fiction coverage is there, but the reading public requires greater awareness and depth of today's publishing environment. The Lovecraft volume has been available for several months and Laura Miller introdued the odd spate of Lovecraft-bashing back in February. And two paragraphs a piece is hardly enough space to cover the latest from Leonardo Padura Fuentes or Poppy Z. Brite. Fiction Chronicle? Try Fiction Chicken McNuggets.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

Only one woman has covered fiction this week.

However, Sam has brought in five (!) women writers for the ten nonfiction reviews this week. And not just anyone, but the likes of Francine Prose and Barbara Ehrenreich. I was particularly enthused to read Sara Wheeler's energetic review of a John Ledyard biography, which balances a sense of wonder with an introduction for those who don't know who Ledyard is.

Brownie Point: EARNED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

Daniel Handler on Lovecraft, Francine Prose on the Peabody Sisters, Barbara Ehrenreich on John Brown, and a contribution from one-time NYTBR editorial candidate Ben Schwarz are all interesting choices. Even if the Ehrenreich review is a bit turgid and the Handler review an almost Peck-style hit piece (more below), Tanenhaus has demonstrated a commitment to experiment a bit. And for this, we award him a brownie point.

Brownie Point: EARNED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

I was a little alarmed to see a full-page ad for the Better Sex Over 40 Series in this week's Review, not because I'm bothered by middle-aged people fucking (actually, it's something I encourage), but because of the ad's telltale revelation. Without the succor of an immediate cold shower, this advertisement suggests what the NYTBR considers as its demographic. And it might explain why so much of the NYTBR's coverage has been lacking.

It serves as an unexpected metaphor. If the Times brass can't understand that people younger than 40 not only buy and read hardcovers, but are impassioned about literature (witness the contretemps over Foer), then the NYTBR is truly destined to become a dinosaur. Is Bill Keller simply not aware that more college students apply to creative writing programs than any other field in English, thus sustaining creative writing programs as universities face budget shortfalls? And from a business perspective, doesn't it make sense for the NYTBR to invite long-term readers rather than frightening them away with microscopic reviews? Or has the Gray Lady thrown in the towel on attracting a younger demographic?

The general perception with newspapers is that only old folks read them. But if that's the case, why has Tanenhaus been so determined to include blurb-sized reviews? Does he really believe that people born before 1965 have shorter attention spans?

Dan Green has already weighed in on David Gates' cover essay. We'll only say that we're glad to see Gates calling the editors of The Outlaw Bible of American Literature on not including Raymond Carver or Susan Sontag. If the safe 'n' sane offerings of He Who Shall Not Be Named ensure "outlaw writer" status, then you may as well toss in the collected works of Bil Keane?

As a hit piece, Daniel Handler's review is surprisingly poor. Handler has long contributed thoughtful book reviews to The San Francisco Chronicle. Even when I've disagreed with him, he's always offered solid examples to prove his points. But it's hard to take Handler seriously when he'd rather describe his physical reactions to reading Lovecraft and when he resorts to mixed metaphors. Not only does Handler misunderstand the Weird Tales canon, but he approaches it with open contempt ("biologically impossible, logistically unplumbable and linguistically unpronounceble"). This from the guy who gave us kids going on quests to recover a sugar bowl and who litters his Lemony Snicket books with wordplay.

The point here is that if a reader can get caught up into Handler's Snicket books, then a reader can likewise get caught up in Lovecraft. (For the record, I dig both.) Fiction, with its many styles and constant experimentation, is far from rigid. Instead, the best that Handler can do is qubble over Lovecraft's semantics. As any Lovecraft afficianado can tell you, Lovecraft was an Anglophiliac of the highest order. As such, Lovecraft's argot, laced with a quirky enthusiasm for modifiers, takes some getting used to. But it never occurs to Handler to question the Lovecraft phenomenon: How has a pulp writer, who kept in touch with the world around him largely through correspondence, managed to preservere for seventy odd years? Surely, the question is worth dwelling upon, even when playing the devil's advocate. But Handler never broaches the question.

By my estimate, almost three paragraphs of A.O. Scott's review are dedicated to Joyce Carol Oates' prolific output, demonstrating once again that Scott remains determined to point out the obvious long after the point has been made.

I expected Salman Rushdie's essay to be as didactic as they usually are, but with the exception of one flagrant swipe at the Bush administratino, Rushdie keeps a level head, suggesting that writing can be a polarizing force for disparate voices to question the issues of our time. Quite an inspiring turn from the usual Back Page fluff on dating books.

CONCLUSIONS:

Beyond passing two of the three tests, this week's NYTBR is actually worth reading. Tanenhaus has injected this week's review with cogent coverage that covers a variety of issues pertaining to books. While he's still sloughing on the fiction front and his nonfiction coverage isn't as crackling as it could be, this week's issue is a step in the right direction. And I hope that Tanenhaus continues to experiment along these lines.

For this, Tanenhaus will, for the first time in Return of the Reluctant's history, receive a delivery of brownies this week.

Brownie Points Denied: 1
Brownie Points Earned: 2

This Spandexed Superhero Begs for Clemency

I don't know how I missed it, but lawyer Stephen Lee has a site called Footnote Comics, whereby comics are annotated with historical and legal background. An entry for Y: The Last Man offers an overview of how a court would deal with a character killing another one and the morning after pill. There's also Footnote TV and offers exhaustive annotations on Fahrenheit 9/11.

KMFFFDFF?

We'd be remiss if we didn't observe that the Cinetrix is providing some stellar coverage of the Full Frame Documentary Full Festival.

The Reel San Francisco

For those who love movies and San Francisco, the Balboa Theatre is holding the Reel San Francisco between April 16 and May 11. Everything from Bullitt to Don Siegel's underrated The Lineup (featuring a fantastic showdown at Sutro Baths with one of the most menacing deliveries of "You're dead" seen in a noir) to Greed is playing over the next month -- with appearances by several local regulars.

No Time

I hate announcing this kind of picayune shit, but between a major transition and several other things I have to finish up, nearly all of my time is acounted for until Sunday's fateful Tanenhaus Brownie Watch.

So feel free to visit some of the fine sites on the left. Meanwhile, up the pipeline:

• My thoughts on the new Nine Inch Nails album.
• At least two more installments of The Neurotic Chronicles (with ambience and sound effects!). Follow our narrator and Wilson as they obtain their pho and continue their journey across the American wasteland.
• More reworking in of the redesign.
• Something involving Charles Dickens.

Daily Roundup

• Finally, an award not won by Andrea Levy. Katharine Davies, first-time novelist and ex-teacher, has won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award for A Good Voyage, a title which suggests little in the way of surprises, too much in the way of pleasantries, and that has nothing to do with Virginia Woolf's first novel.
• While the United States is busy with red-blue and purple maps, the UK is more concerned with such valuable information as the most expensive streets and towns in England and Wales. The winner is London's Earls Terrace, located in Chelsea with an average price of 4.2 million pounds.
• The LBC nabs more momentum through the Associated Press.
• Poet Julia Darling has died of cancer.
• David Kipen takes on Ishiguro.
• Unintentionally sexual comic book covers.

Writing With a Day Job

How do you write a novel with a day job? G.D. Gearino has an answer. Wake up at the ungodly hour of 4 AM and write 250 words before the stroke of six. This allows for 1,250 words a week, or a novel in about a year and a half.

Of course, Trollope was there before Gearino, beginning his writing at exactly 5:30 AM until 11 AM.

Then there's Graham Greene, who stuck with 500 words a day.

But ultimately it's about being a pragmatic workhorse. Holly Lisle has some good advice on when to know to quit.

The Autumn Years of Robert Moses

Robert A. Caro is known primarily for his ongoing biography of Lyndon B. Johnson (the fourth book is in the works and Caro has been so thorough, that he's only just begun work on LBJ's Presidency). He depicts his subjects with a concern for how their actions influenced the downtrodden and frequently pulls no punches. If Caro isn't the most honest biographer working today, he's certainly the most refreshingly combative.

With The Power Broker, a biography of Robert Moses, Caro made his reputation. In that Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Caro unapologetically laid assault on how developer Robert Moses planned New York City for the automobile, bombarding it with expressways, showing no humanity in mowing down homes and eviscerating neighborhoods, neglecting public transportation, or even purloining his brother's inheritance.

I was always curious if Moses ever responded to the book. Well, apparently Moses did.

Moses' defense is composed mostly of rhetroic and, unsurprisingly, condescending of the layman. He rails against the notion of equal time and even singles out poet William Watson. Moses is very much the advocate of unilaterlaism, suggesting at one point that "Critics are ex post facto prophets who can tell how everything should have been done at a time when they were in diapers, in rompers or invisible." I was definitely invisible when Caro's book came out. But if criticism after the fact is a crime, then one has to wonder how humanity maintains its cyclical perspective.

Against the Stool

The stool, with only a handful of exceptions, is worthless.

This conclusion hit me yesterday when I found myself trying to eat some Thai food in an uncomfortable position. The people who owned and operated the joint, true to the nine-to-five, eat-your-lunch-and-get-out mentality, had provided about four stools for their customers. Here, an eat-in customer would sit down, his legs tucked under the stool to maintain a precarious balance, eating overpriced food that was far from scintillating.

Presumably, the idea was introduced because human beings took up space. And the space in this "restaurant" (more of a takeout booth with reluctant seating, actually) was better used for preparing more food, to maintain a revolving circle of food purchasers to be urged out once bags were in hand -- all this guaranteeing an austere profit margin.

Better this, I suppose, then something that ensured long-term customers, such providing AN ACTUAL FUCKING CHAIR rather than a stool improperly aligned to normal vertices (arms to eating surface, legs to floor, the way the human body is constructed), thereby encouraging the customer to come back and eat his viands without hunkering over and looking about as pathetic as a bipedal Mario Brothers turtle while slurping noodles desperately through the mouth.

No. This place had resorted to the stool because it was the most ignoble of furniture.

The stool, incidentally, isn't entirely impractical. If you are holding something along the lines of a guitar and you are playing for three hours, the stool makes perfect sense if you hope to balance and play the instrument with any alacrity. If you need to bend your partner over for a quickie just after tucking the kids into bed, the stool is about as good as it gets when it comes to something devious, but not too daring -- a safe bet, in a Zalman King sense, that isn't missionary.

If you own and operate a bar and you need an excuse to call the cops if the truly sloshed drink to much, stools are a very handy way to gauge a drinker's balance. Certainly after about nine martinis, lumbar support is a nice thing to have. But without it, the highly inebriated customer is ensured a perilous flop backwards or the free flow of his head against the bar, thus ensuring a definitive position and granting a definitive signal to a bartender that it's probably time to call a cab.

But aside from these rare situations, what general value does the stool have? I venture to say: not much.

Let's consider the terminology that has stemmed from the stool: stool piegon; the stools one might find in a toilet; the toadstool; the ducking stool (sometimes a cucking stool), a chair used in common torture to tie someone up and duck him into water; the faldstool, which requires a worshipper to kneel down and pray; and, if you are unfortuante enough to take it, the stool test.

These are clearly not stellar offshoots. While "comfy chair" rolls off the tongue (and was even used in one of Monty Python's most famous sketches), when was the last time you actually used "comfy" or "pleasant" with a stool? I would venture to say: probably not at all.

I've been informed that "stool" comes from the French estale -- a piegon used to entice a hawk into a nest. This may have merged with the Germanic stall, or standing in place. I've also been told that the Old English "stol" means throne. But the word's Indo-European root suggests that its primary definition is a "place or thing that is standing."

And if "standing" is the primary meaning for a piece of furniture that's supposed to involve the human being sitting down, then the time has come to reassess the stool's value in a contemporary environment.

Essentially, we're talking about a sitting apparatus in which the body's carriage is projected upwards in a definite nonergonomic position. For it is nearly impossible to slouch or even hunch over a bit without falling over to one side. The body must maintain an equilibrium, which involves the legs being placed delicately to each side of the stool, often folding uncomfortably under the crossbeams beneath the seat.

If a stool is placed in the center of a room or somewhere without any back support (such as a wall), then the spine remains exposed and the body is forced to adapt to a position that is contrary to the idea of sitting (which, if not formal, I believe involves a relaxing position), and that sometimes involves kicking up one's feet

Sitting in a stool can be compared unfavorably with the disappointing idea of making one's bed. One is led into a mythical state of comfort, only to be granted a letdown. But where the person lying in a bed must contend with the task of making it the next morning, the stool sitter must keep up a sustained position of discomfort within minutes.

Notwithstanding alcohol's quality as a steady depressant, is it little wonder why barflies are so miserable?

Doctor Who Meets Charles Dickens

Whenever Charles Dickens is introduced in a film or on television, I cringe. As a man who owns two and a half complete sets of Dickens (one published in 1898), it's disheartening to see writers go for the easy references and avoid the fact that Dickens was a far more complex figure than people know him as (his lifelong affair with Ellen Lawless Ternan, for example, had considerable influence on his work).

However, the most recent Doctor Who episode, "The Unquiet Dead," demonstrates a surprising familiarity with the great Boz's material:

COACH DRIVER: Everything in order, Mr. Dickens?
DICKENS: No, it is not.
THE DOCTOR: What did he say?
DICKENS: Let me say this first. I'm not without a sense of humor.
THE DOCTOR: Dickens?
DICKENS: Yes.
THE DOCTOR: Charles Dickens?
DICKENS: Yes.
THE DOCTOR: The Charles Dickens?
COACH DRIVER: Should I remove the gentleman, sir?
THE DOCTOR: Charles Dickens! You're brilliant, you are! Completely 100% brilliant! I've read 'em all! Great Expectations, Oliver Twist. And what's the other one? The...the one with the ghost?
DICKENS: "A Christmas Carol?"
THE DOCTOR: No, no, no. The one with the trains. "The Signal-Man!" That's it! Terrifying! The best short story ever written. You're a genius!
COACH DRIVER: Do you want me to get rid of him sir?
DICKENS: Uh, no. I think he can stay.
THE DOCTOR: Honestly, Charles...can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan!
DICKENS: Wh..wh..wh..what? A big what?
THE DOCTOR: Fan! Number one fan! That's me.
DICKENS: How exactly are you a fan? In what way, do you resemble a means of keeping one's self cool?
THE DOCTOR: No, it means "fanatic." Devoted to you. Mind you, for God's sake, the American bit in Martin Chuzzlewit, what's that about? Was that just padding? Or what? I mean, it's rubbish, that bit.
DICKENS: I thought you said you were my fan.
THE DOCTOR: Well, if you can't take criticism. Come on! Do the death of Little Nelly! It cracks me up!

For any Dickens afficianado, the last piece of dialogue is particularly amusing, for It invokes Oscar Wilde, who famously remarked, "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing."

It's good to know that there are some writers out there working in television who pay attention to these things.

Lee Samantha Chang to Head Iowa

As widely reported at other places, Lee Samantha Chang will be Frank Conroy's replacement as the director of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Maud links to an interview with Robert Birnbaum, whereby Chang revealed that she found her calling as a writer almost entirely by accident.

And back in February, the erstwhile Max provided some inside details on Chang's "audition."

Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin has died. She was 59 years old. The cause of her death was unknown.

Dworkin was one of the more vocal and radical of feminists. In 1983, she drafted a law that set up pornography as a civil rights violation against women. And while it was easy to caricature her, as this Michael Moorcock interview with her notes, her positions were often more nuanced than her most gave her credit for.

Personally, I'll miss Dworkin. Even if I didn't always agree with her, there was a determination and a tenacity within Dworkin that I admired. While everyone else was retreating from the gender divide in a post-ERA world, Dworkin kept fighting without abandoning the points she wanted to make, even when she was ridiculed, sometimes unfairly, in the process.

Paris Hilton IS Daisy Buchanan

The news that Paris Hilton is going to play Daisy Buchanan in an upcoming film version of The Great Gatsby might seem horrifying to some -- until we remember the fact that Daisy Buchanan was rich, ditsy and superficial. And so is Paris Hilton.

Even if Paris Hilton simply shows up to the set, this is nothing less than perfect casting.

Here are a few reasons why Paris Hilton will succeed in the role of Daisy Buchanan:

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise--she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression--then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had.

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?"

"Why CANDLES?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year."

She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all--and yet there's something in that voice of hers. . . .

Then from the living-room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note: "I certainly am awfully glad to see you again."

He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.

Bowling in San Francisco

One of the things I accomplished over the weekend was returning to bowling after a two-year absence.

It wasn't easy. You see, I hadn't entirely come to terms with Japantown Bowl's demise.

In San Francisco, there seems to be an unspoken stigma against casual bowling. You'd be surprised at the paucity of bowling alleys in this town. Is it the City's purported sophistication that keeps out bowling? Is bowling somehow declasse? Back in November, when I made the list of red state things and blue state things, bowling never really quite fit. It seemed one of those things that cut across party lines. Whether you were a league player or an incompetent bowler drunk off your ass, the common goal of striking down ten pens was what united people. That and the squeals of teenage girls after a strike and the echoes of balls striking pins. Who can say no to this?

My hometown. That's who.

If you open a bowling alley in San Francisco, it's almost destined for conversion or desuetude. Before Ameoba on the Haight became Ameoba on the Haight, it was a bowling alley called Park Bowl. And the aforementioned Japantown Bowl, the last of the City's great bowling alleys, bit the dust a few years ago. This is really pathetic when you consider that even Manhattan has Bowlmor Lanes.

What's left these days? Yerba Buena Gardens, which has a small bowling alley and nifty Glow-in-the-Dark lighting, might satisfy in a pinch. But a real bowling alley needs to have at least twenty lanes and a few veteran bowlers dispensing advice while practicing lane courtesy. And Yerba Buena doesn't cut it. There's also Presidio Bowling Center, but it's as squeaky-clean and unsullied as Yerba Buena.

So I pretty much lost it when Japantown closed shop. If Yerba Buena was the best that my City could do, then, dammit, I would BOWL NO MORE!

The good news, however, is that a grand bowling experience can be had beyond Serramonte Lanes -- just off the coast, no less, at Sea Bowl in Pacifica, a 32-lane affair with beach paintings stretching across the whole alley just above the pins. The people here are real bowlers. They mean business and they want you to bowl well too. You can hear the sounds of the Pacific right off the beach. One suspects that the bowlers who were forced to leave the City somehow ended up in Pacifica.

But if we are to bring back bowling to the Bay Area (real 20+ lane alley bowling!), Pacifica, with its mighty ocean winds and its cool climate, is a good place to start.

Right-Wing Bloggers Making Up Stories? Why, Who Would Have Thought?

Salon: "[D]ealt a weak hand in the Schiavo case, bloggers all went in on a bluff. And now they refuse to pay up. In fact, they're actually congratulating themselves for helping "get to the bottom" of the story. But the meltdown has exposed their often mindless naiveté."

Tanenhaus Watch: April 10, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction Reviews: 4 one-page reviws, 6 half-page reviews, 1 microscopic blurb in the Children's Books section (0.2 pages), 1 half-page crime roundup. (Total books: 16. Total space: 7.7 pages.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 3 two-page reviews, 1 - 1 1/2 page review, 5 one-page reviews, 2 half-page reviews, 1 page roundup on CIA books. (Total books: 18. Total space: 14.5 pages.)

While the disparity here is, as usual, completely out of step with contemporary fiction (case in point: the NYTBR is only now getting around to Meg Wolitzer's The Position, a book that's been out for over a month) and very much in favor of non-fiction (a pathetic 34.7% of this week's coverage is fiction-oriented), I should point out that this is the first NYTBR I've seen under Tanenhaus' tenure that doesn't feature some unrelated, blustery essay on politics wasting precious column inches. In fact, Tanenhaus can be applauded for getting William Safire and Christopher Hitchens to tie their essays into books.

But one wonders why Tanenhaus is so committed to this type of content. Have you noticed that the letters that come in almost never get excited about any of these essays? (This week's letters deal with Joe Queenan's essay on ghost writers and Zoe Heller's review of Saturday.)

So while I give Sam props for dumping the tangential nonsense, as the great Vince Lombardi once said, "If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" I want Sam to win, but winning means giving your all. And then some.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

Only three women (including the redoubtable Lizzie) contributing to fiction coverage this week (not counting Claire Whitcomb's microscopic blurb)? Only one (one!) woman contributing to nonfiction? What's a girl got to do to get a gig with Sam?

Sam should be ashamed of himself.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

Fortunately, this week's slate of contributors makes up for the other two tests. It's nice to see a full-length review from an illustrator in the Children's Books section, particularly because his sensibility reveals the unexpected glimpse of an insider. While it's a shame to see Lizzie Skurnick's review cramped to a half page, she manages to bring in antecedents and humor into the claustrophobic confines while covering William Henry Lewis' I Got Somebody in Staunton. Choire Sicha injects sociological introspection into his review of The Position and even manages to coin a new term for people in Connecticut to scratch their pates over: "generational dudgeon." I plan to use these two words myself the next time I find myself trapped in a conversation with an unimaginative person. And it's good to see Christopher Hitchens being given a break from writing sensational obituaries.

It's a steady crop and a fair cop.

Brownie Point: EARNED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

William Safire's comparative review does a solid job of introducing the layman to privacy concerns.

Long-time NYTBR readers are aware of David Kamp's inability to separate fact from fiction. What's more, Kamp's widely reported stalking of Neal Pollack sheds an additional doubt on Kamp's credibility as a NYTBR regular. Apparently, Sam Tanenhaus didn't get the memo that explained how questionable David Kamp was and has seen fit to let him run amuck with Ruth Reichl's third memoir.

Kamp starts off with the preposterous notion that most food writers (including Kamp himself?) are "doubtful of the very validity of their profession." Even if we were to accept the strange notion that food critics suffer from rampant insecurity, what does this have anything to do with Riechl or gourmet writing? Isn't any gourmand, by way of her tastes and sensibilities, absolutely confident about the foods that permeate her palate? And isn't this the very quality that makes food writing so exciting?

I grew very uncomfortable reading Kamp's review. He seems more concerned with Reichl's physical appearance (the word "bra" can be found twice and there are no limits to Kamp judging Reichl on her sexuality and her cascading "dark curls"), rather than her qualities as a food writer or a memorist. Factor in Kamp's inability to mention Jayson Blair's name ("He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned") and the Gray Lady glorymongering (apparently, Reichl's stint at the Times is the most fascinating part of the memoir), and we see that Kamp is a man more concerned with voicing his own neuroses rather than assessing a memoir by a seminal gourmand. Perhaps he and Jonathan Franzen might want to sign up for several group therapy sessions, if only to spare us the unpleasant personal revelations.

Personal sartorial choices are also the linchpin of Ben MacIntyre's review of a Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, which, despite the headline's playful riff on the John Ford film, spends too much time dwelling on Spicer-Simson's skirt, as if this, rather then Spicer-Simson's actions, was where the ultimate meaning behind Lake Tanganyika can be found.

It's good to see Richard K. Morgan getting a full-page review, particularly when the subhead describes it as "a dystopian novel" rather than a "science-fiction novel." Tanenhaus is showing signs of thinking outside the box of genre ghettoization. We award him a special half brownie point for doing so.

CONCLUSIONS:

This week's NYTBR has finally recalibrated its pages to complete and total review coverage. And, as such, it's the closest that Tanenhaus has come to earning his brownies. But with fiction coverage still caged within soundbyte-sized reviews, not given the room to expand that previous editors had allowed, it still doesn't cut the mustard for a leading national newspaper.

But if the NYTBR continues further in this direction, and Tanenhaus takes more chances, then we will be more than happy to fulfill our part of the bargain.

Brownie Points Earned: 1.5
Brownie Points Denied: 2

Alternative Press Expo '05

One of the great joys of being a comic book devotee in San Francisco is being able to attend the yearly Alternative Press Expo. Independent comic publishers ranging from the big guys (Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics and Top Shelf) to a limitless array of self-publishers are there to hawk their goods and exchange ideas about where the comic book is heading. Walk only a few steps in the Concourse Exhibition Center and you find yourself talking with the folks behind Too Much Coffee Man or you end up discussing H.P. Lovecraft's sudden legitimacy with the Library of America volume (I counted four separate Lovecraft comic book projects on tap this year), and whether this newfound respectability will interfere with his indie streetcred.

It's a bit like being a kid in a candy store. There are quite literally hundreds of vendors. Everything from personal comics to manga to unapologetically titilating titles such as Babes in Space. For the smaller publishers, the artists are often there themselves to promote their own books -- costermongers by necessity.

It was only the rapidly depleting funds in my wallet that forced me to leave. But I did manage to speak with a good chunk of cartoonists while walking the floor.

For the most part, I tried to ignore the multi-table setups from the big indie publishers. I was there to scope out titles I hadn't heard of. To my surprise, I was able to talk to a few off-the-beaten-track artists I was already familiar with.

Besides Lovecraft, the floor was festooned with compilation comics -- a dependable way of putting out a comic and splitting the hard labor of drawing among several people to get something put out. Two compilation comics in particular caught my eye. Young American Comics has an ongoing series called The BIZMAR Experiment. The challenge? An artist can tell any tale he wants, but it must involve a bunny, an insect, a zombie, a monkey, an alien and a robot. This unique limitation results in some interesting and off-the-wall tales (one story has the other five relentlessly hitting on an anthrmorphized bunny). The folks at Young American also told me that they were planning a YACtour -- essentially, a year-long trip through all the states. Another group project, Unseen on TV, was also recently launched.

The other group project that interested me, a far more morbid offering than BIZMAR, was Mauled!, put out by Manual Comics. It involves collaborative depictions of true-life horror stories. The first two issues deal with, respectively, people attacked at the zoo and surgical malpractice. Fortunately, there's a sense of humor to go along with this. (A depiction of the infamous Phil Bronstein komodo dragon biting, with Sharon Stone in tow, shows the incident from multiple perspectives.) Manual is based out of Hoboken, New Jersey and Mauled! owes its sustained life by the artists' ability to coordinate work through email.

Zombies and Broken Hearts is a new self-published offering from Matt Delight and Kevin Cross. Delight and Cross, both zombie lovers (but reportedly not zombies), told me they spawned the title when they noticed the pre-2004 glut of interest in zombies. Little did they realize that the Dawn of the Dead remake and Shaun of the Dead were just around the corner. But their fun little comic continues the new tradition of zombies being misunderstood and almost completely disregarded by the human population. ("Why does Blake smell like dog shit?" says one human obliviously kissing her lover, now a zombie.) Delight and Cross told me that they had plotted through the fourth issue and had enough ideas for twenty.

I noticed that a new TPB of Arsenic Lullaby, a daring and politically incorrect comic book with zombies of aborted fetuses and field agents from the U.S. Census Bureau, was out. Arsenic Lullaby has been in existence for about five to six years. It is perhaps one of the most unapologetically dark comics being turned out today, almost sure to offend anyone. But this no holds barred approach, however, is part of its charm. To my surprise, the thin and bearded man hawking the goods was none other than Douglas Paszkiewicz himself. Doug told me that he had a spinoff called King Donut in the works. Despite having seen other spinoffs start and fail, he assured me that this one contained some of his best work.

I'm a big fan of Andi (Breakfast After Noon) Watson. And Oni Press now has a new title, Little Star, from Watson, which offers a more introspective take than usual on past regrets and fatherhood. Watson's striking shadings continue to get better, employed for charcoal darkness and even an ultrasound.

Local cartoonist Keith Knight of The K Chronicles (who also has a blog) was there hawking his new book, The Passion of the Keef.

The very animated Batton Lash told me that he's been working on Supernatural Law for about 27 years. Supernatural Law, which tells the tale of attorneys representing monsters and manages to sustain its premise with heavy injections of cultural satire. It started off as a comic strip (what Lash called his "off-Broadway" period) that was eventually picked up in the National Law Journal. After thirteen years of this, Lash began work on Supernatural Law as a comic book. Lash did ferocious research, perhaps more than was necessary, and was told by his superiors that he needed to give the attorneys some time away from the office. There hasn't been a new issue of Supernatural Law, Lash tells me, because he's busy working on the TPB for the first eight issues. While TPBs exist for the remainder of the series, Lash has returned to the beginning to redraw it.

Perhaps the most soft-spoken cartoonist I talked with was the remarkably prolific Jeffrey Brown. Brown was a very amicable guy, but I had to lean in to about a foot away from him to hear what he was saying. He was at the Top Shelf booth with a new title, Minisulk. When I asked him how he was so prolific, he told me that he pretty much drew when rising from bed, before work, and after work. I asked if he drew at his job and he said that he once was able to. But now that security cameras have been added, he's had to be careful.

LBC Momentum Continues

Today's Los Angeles Times runs some ink on the LBC venture, with quotes from Mark, Laila, and yours truly. Allow me to apologize for splitting an infinitive over the phone.

How to Blog Spinelessly (About Trivialities or Anything Else)

Blogs are like backyard yentas crossed with passive-aggressive ennui. They're the perfect tool for letting off steam towards that obnoxious co-worker you're too gutless to confront -- or for clinging onto passionate interests that you'll eventually let go of once you're paying mortgage on a comfortable suburban home and have children.

If you blog, there are no guarantees that anyone will give two shits about what you write. But at least a few readers, who are as bored at their day jobs as you are, will stumble onto your blog. Because they are determined to find every URL that exists on the World Wide Web. While rational people, even courageous people, might use the weblog format, signing their posts with their real names, pursuing passions and righting wrongs with integrity, let's face the facts: chances are that you're not up for a challenge. You'll waste much of your time uploading photos onto Flickr or writing passionate essays about how cute your pet cat is.

The point is that while a handful of people can exercise control in the TMI department, most bloggers (including Ayelet Waldman) can't and won't. These realities shouldn't stop you from unleashing a mad torrent of inanities. If you can't download porn on the clock, well at least you can complain about things that most level-headed people come to terms with.

We here at the Electronic Fanatic Foundation offer a few simple precautions to help you blog spinelessly. Because we firmly believe that even casually mentioning your appreciation for the new Beck album is an invasion of your personal privacy. If followed correctly, these protections (rather than precautions) can save you from the black helicopters or the despicable co-workers who are spying your every move and reporting your behavior to the Department of Homeland Security.

Blog Anonymously

The best way to preserve a spineless presence on the Net is to blog anonymously. Of course, being anonymous isn't as easy as you think.

Let's say you want to blow off some steam about Alice, the human resources manager who puts two cups of cream in her coffee every Tuesday. Why Tuesday? Why can't she do this every day? And why does she drink it black the other four days?

Weblogging is about you and not about Alice. Nevertheless, she is Alice and you are you. And you are an anonymous blogger with carte blanche. You are in the position of becoming a spineless observer. Develop delusions of grandeur. Consider that you might be today's answer to Proust! Alice's coffee fixation could very well be the madeleine tea that gets you noticed by the cognoscenti.

But be careful. There exists the remote possibility that Alice, even though she puts in long hours at her job and doesn't have time to surf the Internet, could Google you sometime in the future.

You don't want to take a chance. So be sure to replace Alice's name with something benign like "The Tyrant."

If that level of specificity, however ambiguous, intimidates you, write about how much you enjoyed the latest cultural phenomenon. For example, "Sin City was great! I loved it!" is a nonspecific post that not only prevents you from explaining anything further, but puts you in with the cool kids. It guarantees a clean slate and a comment from a reader that states, "Fuck yeah!"

That sort of banality is what the blogosphere is all about. Play it safe. You don't want to ruffle any feathers, much less influence your friends and neighbors.

The Five Liars You Meet in Motor City

Mitch Albom has fabricated a column. (via Metafilter)

Fuel Me Information! Fuel Me Americanos!

• A poem written by Tennessee Williams that nobody had known about was discovered in the playwright's 1937 Greek exam. The poem concerns a talking rodent named Kowalski and vividly describes various rats mating -- all this within a mere seventeen lines. Apparently, Williams misheard the rat's squeak ("Eeeekya! Eeeeekya!") as "Stella! Stella!" and was later inspired to write A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Maclean's has an inside scoop of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Apparently, FSG's insides are "no larger than the average Manhattan kitchen and its pale blue-green paint evokes feelings not of publishing glory, but of high school labs and hospital waiting rooms." Competitors hoping to reproduce FSG's continued success (now with Marilynne Robinson) have begun to tone down their decor, all too happy to tear down the walls, expose their fiberglass and let their production interns suffer premature deaths from asbestos poisoning.
• Orlando Bloom is not playing James Bond, nor is he even remotely interested in the fictional spy. At a press conference, he denied ever reading James Bond or seeing a James Bond movie. He adamantly refuses martinis and would rather play a Morris chair in an expensive historical epic than sully his vigor as a debaucherer. He also hasn't been very fun these days.
• The Age says that "sex is difficult to write about" and then proceeds to expend several words on its influence in literature. Apparently, literary perversion all began with an obscure reference to fellatio in an early edition of the Gutenberg Bible.
• "Magnetic attraction" is what brought Charles and Camilla together. And to show reporters just what he was talking about, Prince Charles revealed that he was, in fact, a giant transformer. In response to the sudden electric fields surrounding Buckingham Palace, certain princesses named Sarah have begun to practice Fergiemagnetism.

Let Loose the Blogs of War

Okay, traditional media, we're ready.

Redesign in Progress

Bear with me, folks, as I gradually work in elements of the redesign over the next week.

Keeping the Suspense

Something big is afoot. All I can say is that it involves disseminating devious information. And it's so exciting that I've bought six new pairs of boxers. More to come.

Fuel for Thought

• Rolling Stone: "No combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run American life the way we have been used to running it, or even a substantial fraction of it. The wonders of steady technological progress achieved through the reign of cheap oil have lulled us into a kind of Jiminy Cricket syndrome, leading many Americans to believe that anything we wish for hard enough will come true. These days, even people who ought to know better are wishing ardently for a seamless transition from fossil fuels to their putative replacements."
• ZDNet: "The company has spent millions of dollars persuading people that hybrid electric cars like the Prius never need to be plugged in and work just like normal cars....But the idea of making hybrid cars that have the option of being plugged in is supported by a diverse group of interests, from neoconservatives who support greater fuel efficiency to utilities salivating at the chance to supplant oil with electricity. If you were able to plug a hybrid in overnight, you could potentially use a lot less gas by cruising for long stretches on battery power only."
• Reuters: "U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed 2006 budget calls for much lower funding for Amtrak, and the Secretary of Transportation has said that Amtrak's funding should be overhauled. It's not clear how much support the railroad will have as it goes through the Congressional budget appropriations process, S&P said."

Ed Ideas (Which Will Never Be Adopted):

1. Limousine/Cab Tax Rate
2. Gasoline Tax of $1.50 Per Gallon; All Revenue Going to Public Transportation
3. Tax Breaks for Those Who Don't Own Cars
4. Rental Car Tax
5. Mandate That 65% of All Operational Vehicles Become Hybrids Before 2008
6. Overhaul of National and Local Rail Systems Before 2010
7. Transcontinental High-Speed Rail System to Replace Airports: San Francisco to New York in Less Than Ten Hours at 300 mph by High-Speed Rail. Complimentary Drinks to All Passengers.
8. Ban on SUVs, Hummers and Fuel-Deficient Vehicles for Public Use
9. Those Who Use Public Transportation on Regular Basis Get Free Sex

Morning Roundup

• Ian McEwan mourns Saul Bellow. In particular, he describes how placing a quote from Herzog before a novel makes it sound more important than it really is.
• If the Atlantic won't publish fiction, an author can always aim for Cosmo. That's precisely what author Mary Castillo did for her novel Hot Tamara. Of course, the excerpt in question is a "hot and heavy love scene." But it was either that or a questionnaire determining how effectively you satisfy your man.
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman will play Truman Capote in a biopic. That's fine casting. Unfortunately, in another Capote-related film, Every Word is True, Sandra Bullock will play Harper Lee. To add insult to injury, the producers plan to change the title of Lee's novel. It will now be known as To Kill the Girl Next Door Type.
• Elizabeth George fanboys are incensed with the latest novel. In George's latest, a central character in the Lynley series has been killed off, spawning resentment, multiple sessions of therapy, devious fan fiction, and a firm convinction to seek more mediocre best-selling novelists.
• And Stuart Dybek has made this year's ALA Notable Books list for I Sailed With Magellan. He hopes to make next year's list by titling his novel-in-progress I Painted With Picasso, even though it has nothing to do with the famed artist.

Remind Me Never to Visit Florida

Look, I perceive Jeb Bush as a threat to the public. But the last thing I'd do is shoot the man. The Florida Senate has passed a bill (SB 436, aka the "Castle Doctrine" bill) that permits residents to shoot people who they suspect are attackers in their homes, vehicles, or in public places. (And I'm thinking here that arenas and pay-per-view broadcasts aren't too far behind.) The bill provides "immunity from criminal prosecution or civil action using deadly force; authorizing a law enforcement agency to investigate the use of deadly force but prohibiting the agency from arresting the person unless the agency determines that probable cause exists showing that the force the person used was unlawful."

So if you're in Florida, and you decide to shoot someone, and you claim that the other person was using deadly force, not only are you granted immunity but you'll now have ample time to make a run for the state border while the police are deciding whether probable cause exists.

But it gets better. Because the bill's language actually encourages people not to retreat "if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be."

Of course, with any bill, there's an escape clause. Use of force is not available if a person, withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assaiilant continues or resumes the use of force."

The big question here is how a person can convey his desire not to be shot within that seminal split-second of adrenaline. I'm sure we can count on a gun-totinng Florida resident hopped up on emotional instinct to put down the .45 with a cool head and invite the other person in for a cup of tea.

If this is the natural progression of legislation, then we're only a few years away from Death Race 2000/Robert Sheckley-style reality television.

Damn, Not Another One.

As if Bellow's passing wasn't bad enough, Frank Conroy has died.

New Yorker Masthead Unearthed

In a feat worthy of the great Gerard Jones, Galleycat points to an Observer article which reveals the masthead behind the machine:

Editorial Director and Books Editor: Henry Finder
Books Deputy Editor: Leo Carey
Poetry Editor: Alice Quinn
Fiction Editor: Deborah Treisman
Fiction Deputy Editor: Cressida Leyshon
Fiction Associate Editor: Carin Besser
Goings on About Town and Web Editor: Ben Greenman

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow has died. Bellow was considered one of the great American living writers. And his passing, much to my surprise, left me with a sizable lump in my chest.

I first read Bellow in my early twenties. While his playfulness (the legacy of which can now be found in nearly every Dave Eggers story) of his interminable paragraphs sometimes annoyed me, I was still taken with the way Bellow still managed to cut to the fine point of human observation in unexpected ways. Take, for example, this passage from Humboldt's Gift:

The strain was largely at the top. In the crow's-nest from which the moern autonomous person keeps watch. But of course Cantabile was right. I was vain, and I hadn't the age of renunciation. Whatever that is. It wasn't entirely vanity, though. Lack of exercise made me ill. I used to hope that there would be less energy available to my neuroses as I grew older. Tolstoi thought that people got into trouble because they ate steak and drank vodka and coffee and smoked cigars. Overcharged with calories and stimulants and doing no useful labor they fell into carnality and other sins. At this point I always remembered that Hitler had been a vegetarian, so that it wasn't necessarily the meat that was to blame. Heart-energy, more likely, or a wicked soul, maybe even karma -- paynig for the evil of a past life in this one. According to Steiner, whom I was now reading heavily, the spirit learns from resistance -- the material body resists and opposes it. In the process the body wears out. But I had not gotten good value for my deterioration. Seeing me with my young daughters, silly people sometimes asked if these were my grandchildren. Me! Was it possible! And I saw that I was getting that look of a badly stuffed trophy or mounted specimen that I always associated with age, and was horrified.

When I first read that paragraph (which is still flagged years later by a Post-It note), I was struck by the number of levels it operated on. Here's a man contemplating his debilitation (largely a hypochondria used to mask the inevitability of aging) but is resorting to almost every reference and detail at his disposal to evade the issue. He's blaming himself for not exercising enough, and then seriously grasps for straws in resorting to the questionable health principles of other men.

Finally, Bellow pinpoints the extent of his self-delusion, which involves not coming to terms with the idea of grandchildren, but finally conceding a defeat that not even he can comprehend or accept.

The way that Bellow hit upon the burdens of regret here moved me. And for that, I'll toss down a cold one for Saul tonight, placing Augie March, Herzog and Humboldt's Gift to the bottom of my bookpile for re-reading.

(via Dan Wickett)

[UPDATE: Mark has a nice collection of links.]

Anybody Can Be a Journalist

Here are some dirty secrets that journalists (and, to my great astonishment, Derek Powazek) don't want bloggers to know about:

• All you need is $18 to purchase an AP Stylebook, which covers libel, slander and a variety of rules that will assist you in confirming facts.
• There's a helpful little device called a telephone that will allow you to contact people who can comment on a topic or an issue. People will be happy to talk with you.
• The New York Times, among many other newspapers, makes factual mistakes on a daily basis, many of which are covered and discovered by bloggers.
• Traditional print journalists are scared to death of bloggers, because there's now a new medium demanding accountability.

Definition 1 of my Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines "journalism" as "the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business." (Emphasis added.) And there's the problem right there. Because when you're adopting a professional, businesslike tone that subscribes to a particular style and format, the no-holds-barred arena of weblogging becomes compromised. While having no limits leads to journalism without limits (e.g., having no advertisers, a more journalistically inclined weblog can run a story heavily critical of the company), conversely, a weblogger's contribution in this regard will be tainted by his own subjective viewpoint (link poaching, relying on others to do the work, falling prey to one's own subjective take on the subject, rather than interviewing multiple parties). This, I believe, is what Powazek was getting at.

Fortunately, weblogs are covered in my dictionary under Definition 4: "writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a poupular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing."

I think the weblogs that are concerned with information (and, more often than not, devoted to reporting their information accurately), sometimes in a manner that falls in line with current ethical standards and frequently with a tone that is as far as one can get from "old and dying," represent a New New New Journalism (depending on how many modifiers you attach) lying somewhere between these two definitions. And whether Powazek and others like it or not, weblogs have arrived as new exemplars of journalism. The medium is admittedly still young and has a lot of room to grow, and often gets its facts screwed up. But then so do newspapers and television. Just ask Dan Rather.

I would certainly count the author interviews, accounts of bookstore signings, book reviews, and book review coverage summaries featured so prominently on litblogs during any given week as a new form of arts journalism. These reports are certainly subjective, but from what I can tell there is an overwhelming devotion to not only get the facts straight, but link to the other news sources and bloggers who are pursuing the issues. (For example, the Zoo Press scandal reported here last year involved teaming up with Laila, Kerry Jones, and other interested parties to determine how Neil Azevedo was spending contest funds. The story was then picked up by Poets & Writers Magazine.)

With enough trial and error, hard work, and dedication to ethics, any person can do this. That's what's so exciting about the information-oriented weblog. And what's really great about this "learn as you go" idea is that this falls in line with how many of today's journalists got their training: not with a journalism degree, but through diligent and consistent work.

In a post on his weblog, Powazek writes:

To become a journalist, you have to go to school, go to college, intern at some crap paper, work for crap wages, write whatever dreck the established writers don't want, put up with ego-maniacal, power-mad, amateur Napoleon editors who will freak out if you put a capital letter in the wroNg place, and do this all for years and years before they let you near a story that matters.

This may be true in part (certainly the "crap wages" aspect is, although most editors I've had the pleasure to work with are hardly "Napoleonic" and have been very helpful to me). But here's a list of journalists who pursued other interests while in college, many of them deciding later that journalism was what they wanted to do. Once in the inner sanctum, they were able to perfect their craft on the job:

Thomas M. Burton: Bachelor's in history, doctor of laws degree. (Winner: 2004 Explanatory Writing Pulitzer.)

Garteh Cook: Graduated in 1991 with a double major in International Relations and Mathematical Physics. Went on to work at Foreign Policy. (Winner: 2005 Explanatory Reporting Pulitzer.)

Kevin Helliker: Bachelor's in English literature. (Winner: 2004 Explanatory Writing Pulitzer.)

Julia Keller: Doctorate in English. (Winner: 2005 Feature Writing Pulitzer.)

Amy Dockser Marcus: Graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in history and literature. (Winner: 2005 Beat Reporting Pulitzer.)

Kim Murphy: Graduated in 1977 with English BA. (Winner: 2005 International Reporting Pulitzer.)

The point here being that journalists come from many backgrounds (although many of them are, predictably enough, English majors) and that actually performing the work of a journalist wll lead one to become better at it.

Even if you don't consider a weblog to be journalism, it would be foolish to discount the remarkably symbiotic relationship between weblogs and journalism that calls for greater discovery and greater probing on both sides. If a weblog uncovers a clue, the journalist, with resources at his disposal, pursues it. If a journalist screws up a fact, then the weblogger is there to call him on it. What if the Apple leaks had been another missing detail about Abu Ghraib? Would that then be outside the purview of protection?

Of course, the ultimate problem with weblogs is the lack of editors and lack of accreditation. The horrid side effect of instant journalism is that once a story has been let loose or given a certain spin (such as the recent San Francisco Board of Supervisors' proposal to regulate weblogs, which has already been discounted by statements from various Supervisors and the City Attorney), it contributes to the wild whorl of lies or a certain partisan spin.

But journalism has evolved to a point where reactionary definitions are obsolete. The Internet is here to stay. And those determined to dig deep will keep on digging, regardless of whether or not they collect their paycheck from a newspaper.

So perhaps instead of wasting precious energy complaining about what is or isn't journalism or engaging in this tedious weblogs vs. journalism debate, maybe the time has come for those who are in the business of reporting to extend their hands across the table.

Presumably, Ayelet Will Make Her Appearance in the Next Issue

The Amazing Adventures of Lethem & Chabon (via Bookdwarf)

The Neurotic Chronicles Part One

Part One (3:52)

She Hadn't Perfected Her Image Yet, So She Settled for Eggs

Madonna's Student Film (1976): She eats a raw egg and has another one fried on her body.

At This Rate, His Fifteen Minutes of Fame Will Be Over in 2008

2003: The Movie: one man crams his year into 2:37.

My Ten Dollar Year

[Mr. Champion recently obtained a grant for $10.00 for an artistic project. Citing the rise in artistic projects that involved spending for spending's sake and pointing out how important spending money was to the human experience, Mr. Champion vowed to start living on a mere ten dollars a year, beginning in mid-February. The following journal represnts his attempts to do so.]

February 15, 2005

Tried to buy a burrito, but only had ten bucks to last the rest of the year. Ended up eating some Top Ramen instead. Yum yum! Not quite the sustenance I had when I was living on more than ten bucks, but then grant money is grant money, right? The stale taste reminded me of my college days.

February 25, 2005

Looks like I'm not going to have any quarters for the laundromat this week. Oh well. Guess I'll have to get used to hand-washing my shirts and frequently smelling like last month's sweat. I wonder if I can get Section 8 housing?

Stole a couple apples from the tree next door. I don't think the neighbors will mind too much. They never seem to pick them.

Have lost about 30 pounds. Believe that I'm suffering from botulism, since I've resorted to cracking open those leftover cans of tomatoes in the cupboard. Bet those Atkins diet people never thought of this!

Seeing hallucinations from time to time, but that could be the flouridated tap water. Have to say that I never thought I'd become such a water addict. Oh well. Keeps the stomach rumbles and the dry heaves to a minimum.

Rent's due in a couple of days. I wonder if the landlord will understand my lack of funds. I did tell him that I was an artist, right?

March 5, 2005

Wouldn't you know it? The landlord served me with a Notice to Vacate. Well! No comp tickets for him to my next show!

Tried to talk with him on the phone to see if he could wait about a year or so for me to pay the rent, seeing as how I was living on a total of ten dollars for the time being. But unfortunately, the folks at SBC shut off my phone yesterday. So I did spend 37 cents from the ten dollars to send him a letter. Since I haven't been able to buy fresh pens, I took to writing the letter in my own blood.

Did you know that blood serves as a really fantastic substitute to ink? Who knew? And What a way to pinch pennies!

Am optimistic that my landlord and perhaps SBC will understand.

March 12, 2005

Two men were here to speak with "Mr. Champion about the power." Fortunately, now that I'm looking a bit like Christian Bale from The Machinist these days, they had no way of knowing that it was me. Even when I showed them my driver's license. So I'm now writing this journal by candlelight.

Haven't eaten for about a week. Still, the glow of the pilot light on the gas stove looks beautiful. What a wonderful world!

March 21, 2005

Little elves! My friends! Foolish capitalistic buffoons who live like fatcats! Bwahahahah! I will kiss them all and declare them Irish! No soup for you! They cannot pry me from my beautiful cave of filth!

Still have about eight bucks left and have given each George Washington a name. Dollar number one is named Harry. Dollar number two is named Dolores and she's beautiful! But I'm too weak to give her succor. Dollar number three...I will need to stat counting again.

I lie in foul unwashed bedsheets and marvel at my beautiful decrepitude. Vengeance shall be mine, little elves! Together, we shall Veblenate their hollow spirits and proffer our tongues in the name of the pilot light god!

[There are no additional entries in Mr. Champion's notebook.]

Pulitzer Winners

This year's Pulitzer winners have been announced.

Gilead picks up another award for Best Novel.
John Patrick Shanley's Doubt wins for Drama.
David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing wins for History.
Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan's de Kooning: An American Master wins for Biography.
Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows wins for Poetry.
Steve Coll's Ghost Wars wins for General Non-Fiction.

Electioneering Update

I have a call into Greg Assay, a legislative aide who works in Supervisor Maxwell's office, regarding the overbroad definition of "electioneering communication." My hope is to get an answer here that should clarify the intent of the ordinance and whether or not webloggers will be required to register with the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

[UPDATE: Assay tells me that weblogs will be recognized as a news source. The City Attorney will make an announcement at tomorrow morning's board meeting stating that weblogs will be recognized as a news source.]

San Francisco's Supervisors Declare War Against Bloggers, Free Expression & Right to Privacy

It appears that a proposed San Francisco ordinance discovered by Michael Bassik hopes to crack down on free speech. It seems that here in my hometown, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell wants to issue an ordinance that, in Bassik's words, requires any blog (under the title of "electioneering communication") receiving more than 500 "local" hits a day (which would include this site) mentioning local candidates for office to register their sites with the San Francisco Ethics Commission and remain subject to "website traffic audits."

The ordinance specifically goes after "electioneering communications," which refers to "any communication, including but not limited to any broadcast, cable, satellite, radio, internet, or telephone communication, and any mailing, flyer, doorhanger, pamphlet, brochure, card, sign, billboard, facsimile, or printed advertisement that (A) refers to a clearly identified candidate for City elective office or a City elective officer who is the subject of a recall election; and (B) is distributed within 90 days prior to an election for the City elective officer to 500 or more individuals who are registered to vote or eligible to register to vote in the election or recall election. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that any broadcast, cable, satellite, or radio communication and any sign, billboard or printed advertisement is distributed to 500 or more individuals who are eligible to vote in or eligible to register to vote in an election for the City elective office soght by the candidate or a recall election regarding the City elective officer."

This ordinance was drafted with the idea of holding pamphleteers accountable for their actions. Meaning that those highly annoying flyers that jam up your mailbox during election time would have a specific "Paid for by _________" so you can find out who originated these suckers and kvetch through the appropriate channels, if necessary.

This all sounds very noble and well-meaning. But there's a problem with this, as the exclusionary provision for this term includes "news stories, commentaries, or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio station, television station or other recognized news medium unless such news medium is owned or controlled by any political party, political committee or candidate." (Emphasis added.)

So if an unrecognized "electioneering communication" spends more than $1,000 in a given year (or roughly around $83 a month, which would probably include most people's web hosting and DSL bills), then they would need to file Kafkaesque paperwork and submit to the San Francisco Ethics Commission's draconian policies. And if I am interpreting this correctly, this would apply to "unrecognized" weblogs, even if the weblog owner and operator never received a single cash payment from a candidate.

An unrecognized weblogger would have to prepare an itemized statement for how much they spend on their blogs, the full name, street address, city and zip code of who paid for it, a legible copy and/or transcript of all "electioneering communication" (a printout of the weblog in full?), and "any other information required by the Ethics Commission," which essentially means everything.

So if the San Francisco Ethics Commission decides that edrants.com (or another San Francisco-based site) is "unrecognized" and I happen to take the piss out of Bevan Duffy or Tom Ammiano one day, then I will now have to provide my personal information to the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Further, I will now have to track all web traffic by location, singling out the potential 500 San Francisco-based readers who read this site.

The expected fees and crackdown make this proposal a fundamentally undemocratic approach to local free speech. It is contrary to the variegated opinions that have long subsisted within this City. Further, it sets a bad precedent, something that might be adopted in other cities. And if this isn't in direct violation of Article I of the California Constitution ("the right to privacy") and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, it certainly skirts around it.

The Board of Supervisors is set to vote on this ordinance (what's known as a "first passing") on April 5, 2005 (Tuesday) at 10:00 AM. Beyond sending letters and emails to all of the Supervisors, I would also advise anyone who cares (and can make it) to attend this meeting at City Hall (the Legislative Chamber, Second Floor, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place). (Mapquest link) Under the agenda, there will be an opportuntiy for public comment, up to three minutes per person. So if Ordinance 041489 pisses you off, this is the time to voice your dissent. I should point out that even if the Ordinance is passed on first reading, the Ordinance can be amended to recognize weblogs and other online political sites to be excluded as an "electioneering communication."

I plan to be there myself.

In the meantime, letters, phone calls and emails to all of the Supervisors are encouraged -- preferably today, so that the Supervisors will get this input before their Tuesday meeting. Here is a complete list of San Francisco supervisors:

Jake McGoldrick
District 1
Phone: (415) 554-7410
Fax: (415) 554-7415
Email

Michela Alioto-Pier
District 2
(Note: Supervisor Alioto-Pier dissented when this Ordinance was drafted in committee. She might be our most vocal supporter against the Ordinance on Tuesday's meeting, if we remind her of the overbroad definition of "electioneering communication.")
Phone: (415) 554-7752
Fax: (415) 554-7843
Email

Aaron Peskin (Board President)
District 3
Phone: (415) 554-7450
Fax: (415) 554-7454
Email

Fiona Ma
District 4
Phone: (415) 554-7460
Fax: (415) 554-7432
Email

Ross Mirkarimi
District 5
Phone: (415) 554-7630
Fax: (415) 554-7634
Email

Chris Daly
District 6
Phone: (415) 554-7970
Email

Sean Elsbernd
District 7
Phone: (415) 554-6516
Fax: (415) 554-6546
Email

Bevan Duffy
District 8
Phone: (415) 554-6968
Fax: (415) 554-6909
Email

Tom Ammiano
District 9
Phone: (415) 554-5144
Fax: (415) 554-6255
Email

Sophie Maxwell
District 10
Phone: (415) 554-7670
Fax: (415) 554-7674
Email

Gerardo Sandoval
District 11
Phone: (415) 554-6975
Fax: (415) 554-6979
Email

[UPDATE: Chris Nolan has the backstory on this.]

Sin City

Fuck me. That's some first-class filmmaking, kids.

Blog Around the Clock

The tireless Dan Wickett (who is actually a thinktank of intellectuals operating out of Rhode Island) serves up Edition Three of his "Interview with the Bloggers" series.

Tanenhaus Watch: April 3, 2005

WEEKLY QUESTION: Will this week's NYTBR reflect today's literary and publishing climate? Or will editor Sam Tanenhaus demonstrate yet again that the NYTBR is irrelevant to today's needs? If the former, a tasty brownie will be sent to Mr. Tanenhaus' office. If the latter, the brownie will be denied.

Before we begin the tests, we should point to Lawrene V. Povirk's letter. Povirk has canceled his subscription after twenty years, switching over to the Times Literary Supplement at twice the price. He says that the NYTBR has become "more like People Magazine, attempting at every turn to leverage itself on the celebrity of those it covers."

Editor Sam Tanenhaus has no published response to give to poor Povirk. Like many of us out here, Povrik is saddened by what the NYTBR has become, hoping one day that the once mighty book review section will spawn a few brain lobes again. I should also note that Tanenhaus has failed to respond to any of the Tanenhaus Brownie Watches. Perhaps he will one day, should he ever win a brownie. Perhaps he's being patted on the back for another disgraceful evisceration or he's just simply a busy man. Who knows?

But I wish to point out that the fundamental difference between print media and the blogosphere is not, as the Times suggested last week, lists of lists or acts of counting versus responsible coverage. (Poor Golden Rule Jones was taken completely out of context in that regard.) If anything, the litblogs are longer, more passionate, more comprehensive, and more conversational.

With this in mind, I invite Tanenhaus or anyone writing for the NYTBR to offer their ripostes and responses on these pages. To use Povirk's words, many of us out here are curious about why Tanenhaus & Co. are so content to make the NYTBR "flashier, more superficial and less respectful of its audience."

And with that sentiment, we move forward to this week's issue.

THE COLUMN-INCH TEST:

Fiction Reviews: 1 two-page review, 3 one-page reviews, 1 half-page review. (Total books: 5. Total space: 5.5 pages.)

Non-Fiction Reviews: 1 two-page review, 7 one-page reviews, 3 half-page reviews, 1 back-page roundup. (Total books: 19. Total space: 11.5 paes.)

Folks, this is about as pathetic as it gets. Although W.G. Sebald gets a nonfictional nod, not even in my kindest hour could Tanenhaus be granted so much as a crumb for such weak-kneed coverage of today's fiction. Looking at the hideous ratios (a mere 32% of this week's column inches is devoted to fiction, most of it comprising Walter Kirn's Extremely Loud review, with only 5 out of 26 books that are actual fiction titles), one gets the sense that Tanenhaus has not opened a book of poetry, let alone an experimentalist along the lines of David Markson, for many years.

It's bad enough that this week's fiction is devoted to such obvious titles as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, A.L. Kennedy's Paradise and Andrea Levy's Small Island -- titles familiar to just about anyone keeping tabs on current literature. But even if it is the sublime Cynthia Ozick writing the review, was the two-page spread of Joseph Lelyveld's Omaha Blues really necessary?

We all know that Gray Lady's incestuous pats on the back rival the preternatural policeman-to-donut-shop ratio in any metropolitan area. But if this is Tanenhaus' answer to the customary gold watch given at retirement, this masturbatory coverage, which curiously resembles a centerfold in both its scope and placement, of a memoir written by one of the Times' own reporters feels as if it's been placed to take the smoke off of Laurel Leff's recently published Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper. The Times has yet to respond to the book's claims (which involves how the Times undercounted and downplayed the Holocaust tolls). And Ozick both absolves herself while simultaneously maintaining the Times' hard line when she notes that Lelyveld (not Ozick) dismisses any efforts to undermine Zionism as "Jewish folk belief."

Of course, I'm delighted to see Cynthia Ozick cover any book. But if the Lelyveld review is intended to evade the issue rather than respond to a very important question, one is surprised why Tanenhaus, who has repeatedly expressed a longing to stir shit up, would deliberately miss an opportunity for a a mature and responsible (even a thoughtful) response.

As to Walter Kirn's cover review, I liked where he was going, but unlike my colleague, I think Kirn cuts too wide a swath to convince me. Certainly the postmodernism gimmick has become a certain crutch in today's literature. But we're supposed to assume that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't aware that pomo's old hat. It never ocurs to Kirn that this sophomore slump (if it is a failed experiment) might be a bridge between Everything is Illuminated and whatever JSF writes in the future. Kirn could have made his case had he shown that the Ukranian guy badgering JSF the character throughout Everything Is Illuminated might bear a remarkable resemblence to wisecracking Oskar (instead of just "a cunning combination of other narrators from the kind of books that his author wants to conjure with").

The assumption here that "attention-grabbing graphic elements" are no longer capable of generating an emotional response because, to Kirn's mind, one book fails to do so, is a sort of anticipatory post hoc ergo propter hoc of forthcoming pomo titles. While it's good to see the NYTBR coming close to discussing this very seminal question, we still wish Tanenhaus had busted Kirn's chops a bit more to get a more nuanced take.

Nevertheless, this modest plaudit (more of a "good job, but could use improvement" on Tanenhaus' report card) can't compensate for this week's overwhelming disparity between fiction and nonfiction.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE HARD-ON TEST:

This test concerns the ratio of male to female writers writing for the NYTBR.

A total of six women have contributed to seventeen reviews. This seems a bit better than last week's four to eleven, particularly when you factor in Ozick and Wonkette. But this is actually half a percentage point worse than last week. However, we do commend Tanenhaus on getting Diane McWhorter to write about The Confederate Battle Flag.

Even so, we're still disappointed. Get someone like Maccers to write about dating. Not some turgid, well-groomed doctorate like Daniel Swift (who might want to bone up on Jonathan). "The great fear that dating and relationship manuals seek to soothe with their reassuring strategies is the fear of abandonment and humiliation: of being stood up at a bar or at the altar. This is a fear it is wrongheaded to assuage." Indeed. The great fear I'm having right now is that Tanenhaus thinks these lifeless sentences actually pass for witty banter.

Brownie Point: DENIED!

THE QUIRKY PAIR-UP TEST:

We're pleased to report that after striking 0-3 two straight weeks in a row, we're delighted to give Tanenhaus a brownie point here. However, this is only because Tanenhaus has somehow managed to get Cynthia Ozick and Ana Marie Cox in the same issue. Cox's examination of Ari Fleischer offers a breath of fresh air. I feel sorry for poor Daniel Swift, who clearly didn't know any better and who is placed mercilessly across from Cox.

Brownie Point: EARNED!

CONTENT CONCERNS:

Neil Gordon promises an A.L. Kennedy takedown and claims that Kennedy's novels are "unnecessary" and "collections of novelistic devices." And that's all you need to know, kids. Not a single example or a clarification of what he might mean. Metaphors? Similes? Irony? Allusions? Omniscient narration? Nope. Oh dear. Those are "novelistic devices" too. In fact, you can find these things in many novels. Could it be that Gordon is hoping to blow two paragraphs of contrarian wind because he can't handle a novelist who demands that you read her again? The Magic 8-Ball says MOST CERTAINLY.

James McManus writing about poker books is an interesting idea. But I never thought I'd see the day when Doyle Brunson's Super System 2 was reviewed in a major newspaper. What next, Sam? I'm OK, You're OK? Suze Orman's latest? I have to ask if there are truly any great contibutions to American letters to be found in the Barnes & Noble Self-Help section.

Liesl Schillinger has found some interesting ways to write within Tanenhaus' cramped format, including a comparison to Christopher Isherwood and a meet cute moment. And this Grover Lewis overview was fun.

But the NYTBR's overwhelming aridity and lack of solid fiction coverage can't compensate for the scant offering of strong items.

CONCLUSIONS:

Brownie Points Denied: 2
Brownie Points Earned: 1

The Telltale Sign of a Despotic Maniac? Apparently, Femininity.

It was only recently declassified, and only recently nabbed the okay from author Henry Murray's relatives, but The Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler, a psychological evaluation originally commissioned by the OSS, is now ripe and ready for public consumption. This report was written in 1943 and, unsurprsingly, contains considerable Freudistic takes on the man. There aren't too many surprises here in this supposed barnbuster. We get the usual "Hitler has always worshipped physical force, military conquest, and ruthless domination." Really? I had no idea.

But what's of interest is the conclusion that Hitler was, apparently, "largely feminine in his constitution." This latter judgment has been concluded because he was frail, not particularly athletic, was emotionally dependent on his mother, and "annoyingly subservient" to his superior officers. But it gets better: "His movements have been described as womanish -- a dainty ladylike way of walking (when not assuming a military carriage in public), effeminate gestures of his arms -- a peculiar graceless ineptitude reminiscent of of a girl throwing a baseball."

What's more, "Hitler is no healthy amoral brute. He is a hive of secret neurotic compunctions and feminine sentimentalities which have had to be stubbornly repressed ever since he embarked on his career." (Emphasis in original.)

If this was the stuff of top psychologists at the time, then it's little wonder why the OSS failed to understand Hitler's mentality and why this report was kept under wraps for so many years. One wonders whether "femininity" is something the CIA still looks for in a potential international menace.

What's interesting is that, as recently as last September, psychologists were investigating the "hyper-masculinity" of American politics. Have we truly evolved or is political potency all about the testosterone charge? And if that's the case, where do women fit in?

And We're Almost Done with the McEwan Book Too

It's too nice outside and we have several things to finish up. Until tomorrow's Brownie Watch, I leave you with this astounding video of a very limber man dancing.

Also, Chekhov's Mistress has an interesting post up about important books we continue reading despite their difficulty, the Rake can now be found in The Rocky Mountain News, and Alicia Gifford has won the Million Writers Award for "Toggling the Switch."

China Mieville: In It for the Monsters

We really aren't in the habit of linking to The Believer, but this China Mieville interview was too good to pass up: "I had a conversation with someone about this the other day, and I said, 'Yeah, I’d love to write the Bas Lag encyclopedia.' And they said, 'That’s really bad though, because you’re a socialist. You shouldn’t be writing these books that are just a kind of naked, cynical attempt to cash in on the sad obsessions of the geeks.' And I said, 'No, no, no, you don’t understand at all! I can’t imagine anything I’d love to do more than write an encyclopedia of my imaginary world, with the possible exception of writing the bestiary.' I’m in this fucking business for the monsters. The monsters are the main thing that I love about the fantastic. And unfortunately, you can’t really sell books of monsters to publishers. They insist on stories linking them."

Kids These Days

There's a lot of April Fool's tomfoolery going around. But we're kind of partial to this pisstake. Don't miss "The New Youth Craze."

Another Meme Ignites the Lust

From Language Hat comes a fun list of questions:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Either James Joyce's Ulysses (because I'd be forced to remember all those beautiful passages that spill out of my memory like too much Two Buck Chuck poured into my glass) or James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, because you need a little lust and murder to filter down to the next generation.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Speaking of Cain, I've always had a strange desire to be double-crossed by Phylis Nirdlinger. I had a crush on Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp and wondered as a boy if Nancy Drew ever put out.

The last book you bought is?

Just the other day: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk and A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipul. (I know, I know. Catching up for porous deficiencies.)

What are you currently reading?

The Art of Eating by MFK Fisher, Great Apes by Will Self, Saturday by Ian McEwan.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Today:

1. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
2. Don Quixote by Cervantes
3. A Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
4. The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin
5. A Rememberance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

Many of these have been selected for pragmatic reasons.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

We're not running a relay race, are we?

Pope Declares That He'll Live Forever

Pope John Paul II, long reported to be suffering from ill health, began early training for the Roman Catholic Triathlon this morning. The Pope had long tired of the endless window waves and hoped to demonstrate to the world that, like other elderly leaders before him, he could swim across the Yangtze River in record time.

"Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated," said the Pope. "I'm feeling better than ever and I don't know what these reporters are talking about."

The Pope's acolytes proved just as astonished as anyone else. The Fountain of Youth, discovered last night in the back of a Starbuck's, was moved to the Vatican, where the Pope drank agua fresca and began displaying an unexpected vigor. The Pope reportedly "planned to live forever, or die trying."

When asked what his Catholic constitutency would do now that the Pope's health was secure for at least another 100 years, the Pope suggested that they either read the Bible again or take up cross-stitching.