- Yesterday, I felt a man’s bicep in a hotel room. I’m not lying about this. This man, who will appear very soon on The Bat Segundo Show insisted that I do this, and who was I to turn him down? When a man makes a convincing case for why you should feel his bicep, my position is to throw caution to the wind and live dangerously.
- Speaking of which, Chris Lehmann talks with Martin Amis and asks him the real questions, such as what it was like to sleep with Tina Brown. I’m not sure what bearing this has on Amis as a writer, but if Lehmann is going to lower the bar like this, fair is fair. I’ll accept his needless and gossipy question as legitimate journalism the minute he tells us whether his wife takes it up the ass.
- Stephen Colbert has a comic book alter ego?
- Audrey Niffenegger has followed up The Time Traveler’s Wife with a graphic novel.
- Sarah has been hosting a roundtable for Patrick Anderson’s The Triumph of the Thriller.
- Hey, Brockman, what’s up with the penis references of late?
- The Office: a spec script by David Mamet. (via Gwenda)
- Michael Dirda on Clark Ashton Smith.
- Bookblog: “I’ve read a few interviews [Valentino Achak Deng]‘s done along with Eggers, but I’m interested in what he’s like without having Eggers around.” This is a very good observation.
- Pete Anderson initiates St. Baldrick’s again. Help him out. It’s for a good cause.
- Frances Dinkelspiel and other Berkeley bloggers can be found in the latest Daily Californian.
- Behold! The latest Tournament of Books. I still don’t understand the purpose of the white chicken in the red circle. No doubt this is a deeply symbolic gesture on the part of Kevin Guilfoile. Or perhaps he and the Morning News gang came up with the whole idea at a KFC (the only restaurant that could accommodate the meager ToB catering budget).
- If you’re a Lovecraft fan visiting Providence, this is a handy article. (via Maud)
- A remembrance of Elizabeth Jolley.
- Five freaky Muppet videos.
Roundup
– February 21, 2007Posted in: Roundup
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
I don’t remember the whole story about the rooster as the symbol of the tournament of books, but I know it has something to do with a David Sedaris story, that he nicknames his brother “The Rooster” or something like that?
They say on the site that the winner of the tournament gets a live chicken for their prize. Probably an excuse for boys to make cock jokes.
Forget Tina Brown, I want to know what it’s like to sleep with Claire Tomalin (which he did in the 70s). I’ve been hot for her since reading her Pepys biography.
Ha, that “up the ass” came out of nowhere at the end of that sentence and made me choke up some Pepsi.