- I am finding that June is making everybody crazy. In some cases, it’s the gas prices and the dawning reality that a vacation involves feeding over a few more twenties into the gas tank. In other cases, it’s the heat or some unanticipated weather. In still more cases, it’s prices rising in general. I am wondering if this is what is likewise causing Hillary supporters to freak out about Obama a week after the latter secured the Democratic election. I am wondering if people are reacting like this because they realize that, in some sense, the world will not change no matter what we do. This is not to suggest that we can’t at least enjoy the grand slide into anarchy. Or that we can’t position ourselves to be somewhere in the future where we can then strike unpredictably for the greater good. Even if nobody sees this coming.
- If you missed the news, Rawi Hage won the IMPAC Award. And Nigel Beale has a podcast interview with the man.
- Superheroes Who Can’t Have Sex.
- Phone sex operators revealed. This fascinating gallery reminds me of the scene in Short Cuts when Jennifer Jason Leigh is changing a diaper while talking dirty into the phone. (via C-Monster)
- I am offended by the apology. (via Deblog)
- And the latest on the Sam Zell/Tribune front: Scott C. Smith has stepped down. The memo: “Sam, Randy and I agree it’s time for new leadership to lead the next wave of market driven change in our business.”
- Nam Le on Minnesota Public Radio. Max and Wasserman too.
- Rick Kleffel talks with Karen Joy Fowler.
- Derik on the latest John Porcellino.
- Auto-Tune is a menace. Exhibit A: Billy Joel.
- Rowan Wilson interviews Simon Reynolds.
Roundup
– June 13, 2008Posted in: Uncategorized
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. (
Re: Billy Joel
Forget the auto-tune; dig the unintentionally scarilarious montage of propaganda-pithed Murricans psyching up for a little bonehead virtual battle. Only a stadiumful of mid-war Germans standing for a similar rendition of *Deutschland Ueber Alles* could do it better.
“This is not to suggest that we can’t at least enjoy the grand slide into anarchy.”
Ah, the confident ignorance of youth. Dear boy, we are always sliding into anarchy. It’s like the heavy hand of fascism, always descending on the country, yet so rarely does it ever arrive.
Of course, Peschel. I’ll look you up in a few years when we’re rolling wheelbarrows of dollars to get our loaves of bread.
People are going a little crazy. I think it’s the price of things that’s largely to blame. And here in MN, the bizarro weather.
The phone sex operator portraits are interesting. I wish they wrote a little more about those people. I got more background on the sexually frustrated superheroes than them.
I just saw this featured on LJ and think it’s an interesting link for writers: Food and Drink in Fiction. “For helping writers get more specific and more exotic about the foods they include in their stories.”