June 30, 2006June 30, 2006 by Edward Champion

Roundup

I came close, but I didn’t quite finish the next Segundo podcast last night. But I hope to unleash it either today or tomorrow for your Fourth of July listening pleasure. I’ll have some things to say about patriotism and how the state of the country fits into my annual rereading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution very soon, just before you fire up your barbeques. But in the meantime, I direct your attention to the current literary news at large:

Lee Goldberg is offering sporadic reports of Thrillerfest. Most astonishingly, he stumbled upon this Phoenix bookstore. Who knew that the Phoenix nudists could outshine (or is the word outblind?) San Francisco on the bookstore front?
The London Times offers one of the first reviews of the new Murakami short story collection. (via Black is the New Blood)
Leonardo DiCaprio meets Timothy Leary. I never thought I’d pine for the days when Leo was an ABC News Correspondent interviewing Clinton, but that Leo’s a kid of surprises.
Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump’s new book will be called Why We Want You to Be Rich: Two Men — One Message. Wouldn’t it be more honest for them to call the book Why We Want to Be Rich? Or perhaps the idea here is to disseminate get-rich-quick schemes to desperate rubes naive enough to hand over their $25 to two men who clearly don’t deserve the supplemental income. Interestingly enough, the book will be put out by Rich Press. So at least they’re operating inconspicuously on one front.
Margo Vargos Llosa: “If I tell you, ‘well, I know a man who became in love with a cow.’ So you smile. That’s a stupid story! But when you read Faulkner, this story becomes something so tragic, so tragic. It’s not the story. It’s the way in which the story’s presented, the way in which he creates a context that can transform this stupid thing into something very tragic in which the human condition is expressed.” (via Out of the Woods Now)
Ron Silliman on reading poetry.
Well, damn, if it’s not happening for Kevin, then I’m truly wondering if Superman Returns is the bomb it is. I will offer my two cents sometime this weekend after I’ve had a chance to see the film.
Google won a suit in Germany to progress their library project.
Leonard Cohen interviewed at the Online Newshour. (via Bookninja)
Olentangry Liberty High School, clearly not understanding that teenagers are much smarter than people give them credit for and not realizing that humanity is currently operating in the 21st century, gets its panties in a bunch over The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog at the Night-Time. After one (and only one) complaint from a parent, they’ve pulled the books from the summer reading list. And where is this school located? Ohio, of course. (via Collected Miscellany)
The New York Press‘s Brian Heater talks Lost Girls with Alan Moore.
Leo Strauss: father of the neocons or not?
Happy tenth anniversary, Spike!
RIP Dale Waters.
I took Craig Thompson to the excellent Ploy II when he came through San Francisco a few weeks ago, but, due to a freak accident, the data from our conversation got corrupted. So there will be no podcast, I’m afraid.* But thankfully Dave Welch is on the case, matching Thompson up with Alison Bechdel.
I agree with Dibs that a book review editor who misspells Johnnie Walker is highly suspect. Particularly for those of us out here in literary land fond of liquor.
A few people have emailed me, wondering about the status of my 75 Books challenge. Well, I hope to get some minireviews up fairly soon. Rest assured, I’m ahead of the game. I stand by my word. 75 Books by the end of the year or I’ll eat my weight in rice pilaf.

* And yes I have used every resource possible. Data recovery programs, incantations, you name it. The data simply refuses to exist!

June 29, 2006June 29, 2006 by Edward Champion

24 False Starts

Dan at Pamie.com tried this experiment out. List twenty-five opening sentences of blog entries started in the past two months (in my case, twenty-four over three months):

1. The first time I remember being profoundly misunderstood was at the age of six.

2. The time has come for me to join my revolutionary comrades.

3. Don’t worry. This isn’t one of those tedious hiatus announcements.

4. I can’t even get published in my hometown newspaper.

5. Leon Wieseltier called Checkpoint “a scummy little book.”

6. Allow me to fuck your shit up.

7. There is simply no accounting for taste.

8. I’m jumping in here really quick to report that I’m still making phone calls.

9. The latest scam to crack down on Web expression comes in the form of mandatory web ratings.

10. So your faithful reporter finished Colson Whithead’s Apex Hides the Hurt, a title he’s put off reading because of the shaky reviews.

11. I regularly take on too much and have great difficulty doing nothing.

12. This morning, I received an email that someone is impersonating me and making telephone calls in the dead of night.

13. Since I’ve been too busy cooped up in my five-star hotel room humiliating some of these valets (all of them obvious idiots, I tell you), I haven’t had enough time to follow all the discussion about ME! ME! ME!

14. Last year, the CBC mentioned that the way to get a reader’s attention was to feature a book cover that prominently features breasts.

15. These are troubling times for anybody who gives a damn about satire, because joyless pricks like Garrison Keillor seem to be the posterboys intended to assuage liberal malaise.

16. Frankie and the NR were sweethearts.

17. Every now and then, the Chronicle columnists get something right.

18. Memorial Day is such an absurd occasion for me that I really can’t dignify it with a coherent response.

19. I am a good person; I am also a bad person.

20. I’ve been having lots of discussions with people these days about cultural icons that seem to be verboeten to certain culture-vultures in the City (and in other urban areas).

21. Sometimes, I feel like the mainstream media and the new media need to get together for a few rounds of karaoke and sing “Ebony & Ivory” (or perhaps in the newspaperman’s case, “I Will Survive”) to each other, and realize that there really ain’t that much of a difference between us.

22. Bush’s recent declaration contains several troubling grammatical inconsistencies.

23. Again, the mad rush of insomnia stampedes over my being like a thunder of bison confusing me with the main trail.

24. Whilom ther was dwellynge hewed whyte