Roundup
Written byPosted on December 17, 2007
Filed Under Roundup
- Ah, the folly of youth! College journalist William Sindewald had the funny idea that attending a Chris Dodd rally would reveal a limitless avalanche of hot young women hanging onto the political blowhard’s every words. And why not? Chris Dodd even has a MySpace page! He’s gotta be hip! What Sindewald found instead was a boring speech and fewer girls there than a Rush concert. Here’s a hint to aspiring young lotharios on the political trail: The hippies were the ones who got laid during the 1960s, not the Leo Strauss acolytes. (via Feministe)
- Is this NYT Health article a legitimate piece of a journalism or a movie tie-in?
- Howard Junker reports that Alfred Kazin didn’t suffer fools gladly at Amherst. There’s much more about Kazin’s belligerence towards students in Richard Cook’s forthcoming biography.
- Conversational storytelling for all to strive for: “[H]e can make opening a window seem like the most exciting and naughty thing that has ever happened.” This comes with the news that 47% of Americans have Googled themselves.
- I’m saddened to report that I have no present need for an OhMiBod vibrator, however useful the device may be. If however, you need to rock out while you stretch out, SexyWhispers is giving them away if you tell them why. (via Smart Bitches)
- Can you trust any statute over thirty? While we’re on the subject, that Sherman Antitrust Act is a doddering old bastard and, quite frankly, I’m amazed that he’s still alive, even if his existence involves mostly sucking down Jello while important companies are prevented from near total market monopolization. But don’t worry. With the current government, I’m sure they’ll euthanize Old Man Sherman quite soon!
- Joshua Furst on Mailer: “He knew who he was and he neither allowed the threat of repercussions to silence him nor shirked them when they came. This, I believe, took courage. All of which is exactly why he was such an indispensable voice in American letters and the culture at large. If Mailer often willingly played the buffoon, he did so with the knowledge that this was a sure way for him to slip free of the tyranny of his own fame.”
- Once again, Jonathan Franzen mangles an interesting argumentative position. (via Maud)
- Is shit art? And, yes, this is a literal question. (via C-Monster)
- Sam Sacks on Marilynne Robinson. (via Scott)
- Longass Q&A with Andrew Wylie. (via Sarah)
- A Bookninja interview with Tom McCarthy. And related Tintin vs. Remainder comparison. (former link via Conadlamo)
- RIP Diane Middlebrook.
- Heather Mills is too focused on “charity work” to write a sex book. Insert Benny Hill-like insinuation here.
- Scott Timberg’s article on whether 2007 has been a bad book year has been widely linked and I may respond at length to Timberg’s claims in a future post.
- This NYT article points to the decline in investigative reporting. I should note that several stories I pitched this year as investigative pieces ended up getting turned into op-ed pieces. And I know this has been the case with other journalists. (via OUP Blog)
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Contact Ed by email.
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
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In the 60s, though, you could get laid at a Phil Ochs concert and hear him sing “Draft Dodger Rag” with those immortal lyrics “I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down.”
OK, talk about typing casting Anakin Skywalker. Again he’s on a table and feeling it.