- Ron Silliman takes on the metrosexual creature Jon Carroll for his dubious column on poetry.
- So if you like to see David Duchovny getting laid, Californication‘s your show, I suppose. Showtime: No Limits. Why don’t they just call the show Duchovny’s Dick and get it over with?
- Ruben Bolling envisions Cormac McCarthy’s Toy Story 3. (via Rarely Likable)
- I haven’t meticulously examined Adam Gopnik’s lengthy take on PKD yet, but when I do, I hope to offer a lengthy response. There are many things that need to be addressed here.
- Japan purchased 331% more books on phones in 2006. Do e-books have a new future?
- ” all, this book paints a punishingly bleak picture.” Leave it to Janet Maslin to demonstrate all the subtlety of a 16 ton weight’s impact upon a reader’s skull. Please, Maslin, go back to film reviewing. You were good at that.
- Murakami starts writing.
- Pollock doesn’t use pink.
- Levi Asher interviews Katharine Weber.
- Rick Kleffel talks with William Gibson. And here are some reactions to Spook Country. (via Locus)
- Tod Goldberg reads Harry Potter fan fiction.
- Josh Glenn tries to make sense of Hitch’s standards of juvenile literature.
- This year’s British Fantasy Award nominees have left the building.
- In this preposterous article, Arthur C. Brooks argues that adjusting our society for income disparity is unnecessary, because studies show that the level of happiness hasn’t changed since 1972. Obviously, Brooks is unaware that people often prevaricate when asked “How are you doing?” or “Are you happy?” The more interesting question is whether the General Social Survey accounted for this discrepancy. Are people more conformist in 2004 than they were in 1973? And, as such, are they more inclined to say that they are “very happy” when an auspicious surveyor presses them on the subject? Furthermore, by what stretch of the imagination is improving social and financial conditions for all a bad thing? Why does Brooks naively separate opportunity from income inequality? It’s not a matter of being envious, but of ensuring that more people have a chance to live legitimately happy lives. Moving cash around from the haves to the have nots so that more income can be redistributed for the benefit of a society is a start, seeing as how government is currently disinclined to do this.
- UK broadband customers are going to be paying the price for the popularity of online video. Will American providers attempt something similar?
- Why are we so obsessed with Jane Austen’s love life? (via Big Bad Book Blog)
- I’m with Scott. It seems patently absurd to invent bullshit genres around current events. This blog, incidentally, by way of operating presently in August 14, 2007, is a post-9/11, post-Katrina, post-Rove resignation blog. I will do my best to write with angst and importance, but I can’t promise anything.
- Jeff VanderMeer uncovers a few rare Choose Your Own Adventure covers.
- What will be the title of Indiana Jones IV? Why not Indiana Jones and the Threat of Geritol?
- Henry Kisor is pessimistic about the future of literature.
- Between this and the Hitchens review, I really want to know what fumes NYT staffers are inhaling at the new building. Seriously. (via The Gurgling Cod)
Roundup at a Strange Hour
– August 14, 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. (
Duchovny’s dick?:) All i saw was T & A:) That said, i loved the pilot. Can’t wait for the next ep. For sure Weeds is just as sexual as this show in MHO.
I’m not pessimistic about the future of literature. What I am pessimistic about is the future of Henry Kisor.