- Desperate dental measures for desperate freelancers. (via The Publishing Spot)
- Sometimes, you just need to go for a stroll. Christ, I miss California. (via Smart Bitches)
- The “This I Believe” segments on NPR really make me want to hit something. These so-called “essayists” are needlessly calm and the worldviews expressed generally involve some unhelpful “common sense” you can all too easily obtain from a bland bookkeeper who has neither smiled nor walked on the wild side once in the past twelve years. So why do I listen to NPR? Well, I keep hoping that some crazy bastard will emerge, screaming “We’ve going to blow shit up in Torremolinos!” and then proceed to deliver an enthusiastic, profanity-laced lecture on Borges, with a digression into the history of the graham cracker, with a mariachi band forcing the staid hosts to dance and speak in an inflection that isn’t that sedate, okay-I’ll-have-my-Valium-now NPR issue voice. Why doesn’t anyone on NPR get excited?
- Who knew that Scandinavian radio had such a history?
- Todd McFarlane and Josh Olson promise a revisionist Oz film. The new movie, tentatively entitled Tits and Toto, will involve Dorothy pimping her way down the Yellow Brick Road, schtupping everything she sees. Look for a ten-minute water sports scene involving the Cowardly Lion, where he runs into the forest after being asked to urinate upon Dorothy’s bare bottom. And instead of an oil can, the Tin Man will, thanks to the magic of bukkake, will be unlocked from his rust. Fun for the whole family! Do you think they’ll show it every year on television?
- Grace Paley has died. Maud has a tribute.
- Also, RIP Magdalen Nabb.
- Scott Timberg on Ross Macdonald. (via Sarah)
- One in four Americans did not read last year.
Roundup
– August 23, 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. (
Interesting that 1/4 of Americans didn’t read but America purportedly has a 30% illiteracy rate. Who are these 5% of illiterate Americans that are reading books?
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute is a wonderful book and Grace Paley was a great writer. I hope she had a safe trip down through the black hole. I wonder how long some writer for the New Yorker will tell us what a horrible writer she was and how we shouldn’t bother to read any of her books because while she was alive she was rich and famous.
“An enthusiastic, profanity-laced lecture on Writer XXXXX.”
I know you have enough friends and writers to fill up an entire show like that. Pick a writer and some profanity spewing, enthusiastic guests, pour some scotch, and turn on the microphone, I would buy that for a dollar.