Month / November 2009

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Laurel Snyder

Laurel Snyder recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #313. Laurel Snyder is most recently the author of Any Which Wall.

segundo313

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Concerned about walls and their failed sentience throughout the years.

Author: Laurel Snyder

Subjects Discussed: The extraordinary conditions in which Any Which Wall was written, the flexibility that comes from being a small fish, a writing identity tied to poetry and waitressing, the tendency for books to come quicker in the children’s market, financial experiments that involve finishing novels, YA authors and creating a backlist, Norton Juster, Edward Eager’s Half Magic series, being too tied to homage, the virtues of sitting your ass in a chair, sexism in YA vs. patriarchal walls, patriarchy and gods, italicized passages, whether or not discussions with editors can prove violent, the degree of defensiveness within writers, the etymology of “bleckish,” debating the vital issue of whether or not rats actually dance in New York subways, Robert Sullivan’s Rats, old ladies on unicycles, godlike narrators, Don Quixote, sending books out without an agent, being scared of the first person, how rewriting changes books, Roald Dahl, believing in voice, reader reaction, an author’s inevitable pattern of repetition, the dangers of ambition, the element of control, the quest for authenticity, on not being satisfied by books that have been written, the joys of having written vs. the joys of writing, impatience, the unexpected work-related spontaneity that comes from children, J. Robert Lennon, dictating and driving, finding moments of silence, and balancing life and the creative exigencies of anarchy.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

laurelsnyderCorrespondent: Henry opines that all meals should be hand-holdable and that forks and spoons should be against the law. You, again as the narrator — and this is interesting. You as the narrator.

Snyder: I’m a little intrusive.

Correspondent: Yeah, you’re a little intrusive and you start to question what your characters are saying. And you object to this line of reasoning, writing, “How could you ever eat spaghetti without a fork? And how could you live without spaghetti?” I must object to your objection.

Snyder: You can live without spaghetti?

Correspondent: No. No, you can still eat spaghetti without a fork.

Snyder: Oh, that’s true.

Correspondent: You can always slurp up the noodles. Now that’s going to make a big deal of a mess and particularly….

Snyder: You don’t have a two-year-old, do you?

Correspondent: No, I don’t.

Snyder: I have a two-year-old, and have seen people eat spaghetti without a fork. And may I say, it’s not pleasant.

Correspondent: But Henry may very well just want to slurp his spaghetti. What’s so wrong about that? He’s going through a sort of slurping stage, as opposed to the more civilized fork and knife.

Snyder: I think that Henry’s mother would object. No, the intrusive narrator thing is an interesting thing. It’s coming out in the next book. The first two books both have this. [Up and Down the] Scratchy Mountains and Any Which Wall both have this intrusive narrator. And it’s a voice that I take from earlier books. And I really like those kinds of books myself. But I’ve begun to realize that there’s a degree to which, if you assert that much as a narrator, the characters never fully detach from me. And so with the next book, I’ve let that go. And in the book that I’m starting on right now — the book that I’m not going to have a deadline for, the book that I’m going to try and do differently — I’m actually going to first person. And it’s scary to me. But I’m letting go of not only of not only my intrusive narrator, but the third person altogether.

Correspondent: But I don’t know if I agree with the idea of a nagging narrator getting in the way of character. If anything, it actually causes certain…

Snyder: But it creates a kind of meta. It creates a kind of frame for the book. As long as the narrator is there. This is something I think about a lot actually. In a lot of children’s books, the kid is telling the story. Like it’s a first person story. But it’s not a diary. And this happens in adult books too. It’s the sort of opening of “This happened last October” kind of voice.

Correspondent: Yeah.

Snyder: It’s like, “Well, who the hell are you talking to?” Who is that person talking to? When the narrator is stepping forward and saying, “You the reader blah blah blah,” it creates a kind of stage, right?

Correspondent: Yeah.

Snyder: It creates a kind of stage for those characters to be performing on. And I think on some level — there’s a sort of theatrical. It’s a voiceover. And it’s like, you know how when you’re watching a movie and there’s a voiceover or like music starts in the background, and kids will joke, “Where’s that music coming from?”

Correspondent: Yeah.

Snyder: It’s that moment of “Where’s that voice coming from?” I actually have an idea for an adult novel that I’ll probably never write where the book begins with a third-person omniscient narrator. And then on page 150, that same voices says “you” or “me.” And you realize that it’s the voice of god. That third-person voice is essentially the voice of god. Letting that god then enter for the second half of the book to be a character. I can’t imagine writing that book, but I like the idea of that existing.

BSS #313: Laurel Snyder (Download MP3)

This text will be replaced

Listen: Play in new window | Download

by Edward Champion

Review: The Road (2009)

theroad

In 2006, an incalculable number of retroussé-nosed snobs — most possessing little understanding or appreciation of speculative fiction — were justly charmed by Cormac McCarthy’s YA novel, The Road. It was a common weakness for such ostensibly erudite essayists as James Wood to not comprehend that McCarthy, like nearly every other speculative fiction author, was extrapolating his own values of fatherhood and manhood onto his fantastical canvas. Functional illiterates, without even an elementary knowledge of the exciting New Weird and steampunk movements then in full bloom, raved that The Road was “unlike any book you’ve read in a long time,” and that sentiment was certainly true if your grasp of speculative fiction extended no further than a Ray Bradbury story read under duress in a high school haze. But McCarthy’s novel — simple yet effective in its execution — went on to earn the Pulitzer Prize and was even selected by the middlebrow television queen, who proudly gushed to McCarthy that he looked just like he did on the back of the cover.

I am happy to report that The Road, in its cinematic version, lives up to this wanton accessibility. It lacks the apocalyptic punch of 1984’s Threads or 1982’s The Day After, and is far from bleak and depressing in its approach. But a liberal parent may very well argue that this family-centric film is fun for the whole family. I couldn’t help but wonder at times whether Viggo would coo, “Good night, John Boy,” under the acid rain of family values. The film does possess a streak of humanity comparable, at times, to 1983’s Testament, particularly since it is securely anchored by Viggo Mortensen, who conceals an effective bundle of husks, rasps, and laconic remnants within his spindly, half-starved frame. (He even delivers McCarthy’s contractions without apostrophes. This is a dedicated lead actor.) Joe Penhall’s adaptation is relatively faithful to the book, reproducing much of the narrative moments and the dialogue (although on film, the mind’s eye begins to see the question marks forming around lines, somewhat sullying McCarthy’s intent). There’s also gruff narration from Mortensen reading much of McCarthy’s prose, which I’m not sure was needed. Flashback moments involving Charlize Theron as the mother come perilously close to needless audience spoonfeeding.

But then McCarthy’s book was, in its own way, altogether too geared for mass consumption. One moment from the book, bearing the telltale indicator of a corporation wheeling over a rusty shopping cart of money, has been lovingly reproduced on screen. But director John Hillcoat and Penhall shouldn’t be held entirely accountable. They have indeed been true to the book, rendering every line of the following exchange:

He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca-Cola.

What is it, Papa?

It’s a treat. For you.

What is it?

Here. Sit down.

He slipped the boy’s knapsack straps loose and set the pack on the floor behind him and he put his thumbnail under the aluminum lip on the top of the can and opened it. He leaned his nose to the slight fizz coming from the can and then handed it to the boy. Go ahead, he said.

The boy took the can. It’s bubbly, he said.

Go ahead.

He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said.

Yes. It is.

You have some, Papa.

I want you to drink it.

You have some.

He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let’s just sit here.

The stuff of literature! A book and a smile! And a film and a smile.

On the big screen, the thinking audience member, troubled not only by this product placement coming at the expense of verisimilitude, notes that warm and unrefrigerated Coca-Cola nestled for so long would surely have gone flat. (Indeed, the subject was argued about on Metafilter.)

The apocalypse’s visual elements involve tilted telephone poles, burned out office parks, skeletal remains, bituminious detritus, and frequent flickers of past civilization (paintings within a gutted out church, portraits in houses) cannily mirroring the father’s desire to “carry on the soul” and stay “one of the good guys” in a landscape populated mostly by cannibals. Alas, the sordid cannibalism doesn’t include the book’s infamous roasted baby, which China Mieville rightly called “a little bit camp.” We do see bloody bathtubs and sinks, a basement populated by living human meat, and chops and screams in the distance. But Delicatessen and Eating Raoul this ain’t. This grisly stuff should jolt or horrify, as it does on the page. But the film’s cannibals are more or less actors daubed up with grease who wear trucker’s caps. The intent is to depict humanity debased by desperate impulses, but it comes off like a cheap shot at red staters.

Still, some of the film’s pulled punches are redeemed by the solid performances (Kodi Smit-McPhee is good as The Boy) and a sound mix that knows the value of silence and knows when to intrude with creepy creaks. Robert Duvall’s presence as the old man is quite welcome and possibly more of a humanizing influence than the character’s appearance in the book. And while David Edelstein has pooh-poohed the film’s seeming “monotonous” quality, I must commend the film for the same reason. (Then again, it’s doubtful that Edelstein paid much attention. He claims that “having Mom lurch off is quite an evolutionary statement,” but failed to note Molly Parker’s presence at the end.) This is a film about process. Surviving in a wasteland when there’s no real reason to survive — other than the nebulous idea of “going south” — is one of the film’s (and the duo’s) reasons for being. It also helps that the father is, as the flashbacks and the incident with the thief reveal, hardly a flawless and glowing patriarch, and that his mistakes don’t necessarily coincide with the conditions.

Make no mistake: This is a feel-good apocalypse movie. And while the film is more entertainment than art, it’s just loose enough to provide any number of comparisons to the present economic shitstorm. Because of this, I suspect it may perform quite well at the box office.

by Edward Champion

Review: The Missing Person (2009)

THe Missing Person

Noah Buschel’s The Missing Person (opening in New York today) is, as the title intimates, yet another entry from the Hey, I’ve Got a Clever Twist! school of filmmaking. Now several clever twists, nestled within a narrative at unpredictable points, are perfectly wonderful. Some American independent filmmakers, such as Darren Aronofsky and Shane Carruth (the latter regrettably absent from filmmaking since his low-budget breakthrough Primer), have fulfilled this grandiose requisite of complex storytelling, which shares some qualities with the “prodigious fiction” identified by literary critic Tom LeClair in 1996. But an embedded narrative, whether brainy or entertaining, is only as good as the character qualities and developments it pitches at unexpected arcs.

I’m quibbling with the very quality that prevents The Missing Person from fleshing out its seedy and goofy potential, which is more concerned with the singular twist: that one revealing moment on which all action hinges upon. We can probably blame the unitarian “clever” narrative impulse, a clunky can rattling around the halls of cinema for the last two decades or so, on such overrated offerings as The Usual Suspects and The Crying Game — both competently put together, but emotionally hollow and reliant upon strong acting once you know the Big Reveal.

And like all Hey, I’ve Got a Clever Twist! films, The Missing Person is at its most interesting before we know the why. A former NYPD officer with the promisingly idiosyncratic name of John Rosow (played by Michael Shannon) lies in bed in a sparse rundown flat, complete with subway cars rattling noisily behind him and constructed of seemingly nothing more than blue concrete. We learn that he is an alcoholic, that his services now involve primitive forms of private investigation, and that he is not particularly adept at his job. Rosow’s work is ridiculously easy and ridiculous lucrative. $500 a day plus expenses. The missing man he must track on a train sits with his compartment door open. A middle-aged woman later throws herself at Rosow. A Los Angeles cop on a Segway hectors Rosow for smoking a cigarette. There is something of the Old World dying within Rosow. And the burned out quality is strangely augmented by Shannon’s mumbling and shuffling manner. Shannon even adds a tinge of Bogart to his inflections. (He isn’t the only actor mimicking a forgotten cultural figure. Frank Wood, playing the eponymous missing person, oscillates his deep voice so that it sounds eerily like Dick Cavett.)

We are therefore left to wonder why such an incompetent would not only get work — particularly during the present economic climate — but get handsomely paid for it. As one character says to Rosow, “You stick out like a broken nose.” This is an unusual character approach rarely seen in movies today, and Buschel manages to accentuate these incongruities with some understated humor. Rosow confuses the famous search engine with gogolplex. Rosow is more adept chopping up lemons and limes and pouring drinks rather than getting hard information. And while there are needless flashbacks to Rosow’s past interfering with his character qualities in the present, Rosow’s crude no-bullshit quality — seen when he defiantly fires up a cigarette in a cab and when he extracts a camera phone from a smarmy cell phone salesman — bears the funny conceit that even a relatively clueless man committed to single-minded pursuit can get results. This is, after all, an age more concerned with political correctness and passive aggressiveness.

But because The Missing Person is a Hey, I’ve Got a Clever Twist! film, the twist betrays these giddy possibilities. The talented Amy Ryan, who executive produced this film, is wasted as a throwaway Girl Friday. And her fate at film’s end is precisely what we expect. It doesn’t help that the Clever Twist, as is most frequently the case with such movies, isn’t very plausible. I won’t reveal what happens, but I must ask how the Missing Person can get away with his crime without any other government agency or insurance company locating him. He operates in plain sight. There’s a lot of money invested in his fate. Surely, someone would have found him before Rosow.

This major story flaw spoils what should have been a quirky little movie. I can commend Buschel for his blunt and slightly eccentric dialogue. “You’re putting me in a very idiosyncratic spot here,” says one character. A cabdriver states, “I’m not allowed to talk about directions. I’d get into big trouble.” There’s also a pair of FBI agents who offer Rosow an extra pair of sunglasses that they picked up from 7-11.

It’s evident that Buschel has a good knack for quirky moments that don’t feel particularly phony. And I regret that I haven’t seen his other two films. But after seeing The Missing Person, I suspect that Buschel has a movie in him that’s just as good as Wayne Kramer’s best films (The Cooler and Running Scared). He is clearly operating in the same mode. And since giddy filmmakers lifting from life (rather than Diablo Cody’s insipid cultural reference) seem to be in short supply these days, I certainly hope that, with future offerings, Bushel does away with his reliance on Clever Twists and trusts his crazy subconscious to offer us something more spontaneous and special.

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #312. Solnit is most recently the author of A Paradise Built in Hell.

segundo312

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Finding hostility within legitimate clarification.

Author: Rebecca Solnit

Subjects Discussed: William James’s second treatise on pragmatism, the alternative notion which means the same as a preexisting notion, General Funston’s martial response to the 1906 earthquake vs. Pauline Jacobson’s push for camaraderie, beliefs conditioned by response, the psychological reset position, assumptions about human nature, innate helpfulness, responses to the Blitz bombings, the minority option of panic, Enrico Quarantelli’s disaster research in the early 1950s, Caron Chess and Lee Clarke’s elite panic, Kropotkin, the question of community’s compatibility with institutional authority, the LAPD officer who was courteous to protesters, good cops vs. anarchy, how Argentina’s government affects the manner in which people come together, the 2001 Argentina economic meltdown, the failure of Starbucks workers to give ambulance workers free water on 9/11, Martin Luther King’s notion of beloved community, John Guilfoy, the joy of disaster, resorting to Hobbesian metaphors, Henry James writing to his brother in San Francisco in distress, the looting question in Katrina, Timothy Garton Ash’s response to 9/11, assumptions that journalists make in relation to disaster, quibbling with Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, acknowledging contemporary suffering, the Republic Windows strike, mutual aid, the slippery nature of the definition of “civil society,” taking control of the vernacular, work with TomDispatch.com, alternative media, a new language of emotion and not being connected, capitalism’s regulation of society, Dorothy Day’s notion of not being able to admit how people have failed us, becoming a writer, value-added theory and programemd human response, and the Donnell Harrington/Dan Baum controversy.

INTRODUCTION:

On April 13, 2008, Rebecca Solnit published an essay on TomDispatch.com called “Men Who Explain Things To Me,” in which she rightly complained about “the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in the field from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world.” In a September 2009 interview with The Believer, Solnit expanded on these thoughts, stating to Benjamin Cohen that she despised “the more face-to-face stuff when I get squelched, dismissed, insulted, and presumed ignorant by silly men in passing.”

I was aware of all this before I talked with Rebeca Solnit and I set out to respect this temperament. Solnit remains an interesting and an original thinker. And The Bat Segundo Show has always been about embracing people who are misinterpreted or misunderstood. permitting them to clarify their positions in a challenging and admittedly idiosyncratic manner. But my basic approach of civil disagreement, applied even to viewpoints I agree with for any doubting Thomas piped into the podcast, occasionally gets me into trouble.

danbaumblocksmallI was also aware of Solnit’s dispute with Dan Baum, in which Baum, reviewing Solnit’s book in the Washington Post, quibbled with the “evidence” that Solnit produced in relation to New Orleans shootings in the Algiers neighborhood just after Katrina. Indeed, in asking Dan Baum to clarify his thoughts, he proved obdurate in his viewpoint and proceeded to block me on Twitter.

Additional investigation, revealing the full extent of the Algiers evidence, is available at the Nation site and a link to A.C. Thompson’s article has been provided on the Bat Segundo website. But during our conversation, near the end, I hoped to get Solnit to clarify the nature of this evidence on the record and she proved just as uncooperative as Dan Baum.

I asked Solnit a perfectly reasonable question concerning why she could accept Donnell Herrington’s account on its own, without legitimizing his claim further with supportive evidence.

Here are a few reasons why evidence beyond oral testimony is so important.

In 1987, Tawana Brawley accused six white men of raping her. It was later revealed that Brawley created the appearance of a sexual assault. Brawley managed to dupe all manner of well-meaning people with her unfounded assertions.

In 1989, a man named Charles Stuart claimed that an African-American gunman with a raspy voice robbed him and killed his pregnant wife, Carol. He had injuries (or evidence, by Solnit’s definition). Subsequent testimony revealed that he had orchestrated the entire incident. There was no African-American gunman. Stuart had preyed on racist sentiments.

In 1994, Susan Smith claimed that an African-American had carjacked her with her sons in the car. As we all know, she was the one who had staged the entire incident after she had killed her own children.

I will leave the listener to judge whether my questioning predicated upon these considerations was right or wrong.

For what it’s worth, I do not believe that Solnit is entirely ignorant. Her books have demonstrated that she is an accomplished thinker. And despite some minor caveats, I can wholeheartedly recommend the book which forms the center of this conversation.

But it is wrong for Solnit to confuse clarification with dismissal of her viewpiont. It is also wrong for any person who purports or aspires to be an intellectual, whether Dan Baum or Rebecca Solnit, to insist that any view is above inquiry or examination.

solnit

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: One of the parties involved in this particular dispute…

Solnit: (looks at her watch)

Correspondent: This will be my last question. Don’t worry. One of the parties in this particular dispute actually blocked me on Twitter. And that is your online skirmish with Dan Baum. He blocked me when I was trying to actually ask him about this. I am curious. I want to just clarify this thing because there was considerable controversy over your use of the word “evidence.” You said, “I had the evidence.”

Solnit: Well…

Correspondent: Basically, when you wrote, “There are plenty of rumors, but the evidence was there.” Then you said, “I had the evidence.” Now I think the confusion of this whole needless pedantic skirmish had to do with the fact that you were about to describe what…

Solnit: Hang on just a second.

[Solnit interrupts and answers a phone call. Not recorded to protect privacy.]

Correspondent: Alright. Just to be…

Solnit: You know, in the short thing, I say that people go to jail on sketchier evidence that has been produced in a lot of ways.

Correspondent: But what specifically was the evidence? Was it the AC Thompson findings at the time? The FBI investigation? I mean, at least according to what was in the book.

Solnit: Well, the FBI investigation hasn’t led to any conclusions.

Correspondent: Yeah.

Solnit: But evidence to send people to jail depends on specific individuals being tied to specific crimes, but we have a lot of witnesses to…attempted murders, to bodies with bullets in them, in the area, and a lot of witnesses to men boasting of killings, etcetera. You know, there’s a lot of pieces. And there’s too many pieces to not believe that something happened and to not be pretty clear that what happened was that these vigilantes, you know. And these heavily armed vigilantes threatened, shot at, injured, and most likely killed black men in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Correspondent: So the testimony of Donnell Her….

Solnit: You know what? I’m not going to get into this. I’m not here to talk about a letter. I’m here to talk about the book.

Correspondent: Well, I’m trying to just clarify specifically what the “evidence” was. Was it Donnell Herrington’s testimony to you and AC Thompson when you were sitting at the table? Was it…

Solnit: It was a huge…it was a great many people who are not connected to each other coming forward with the same story. It was the medics and the common ground clinic telling me that they had many people confess to them in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that they had witnessed or participated in murders of this type. It was the videotape evidence of the Danish videographer’s videotape. It was Donnell Herrington’s testimony. It was, you know, other pieces of evidence about the vigilantes, including positive news stories about how they defended their neighborhood. It was Malik Rahim telling me and various other people, including Amy Goodman, at great length about what he had experienced in terms of threats and harassment and an expectation of a race war in his neighborhood, and bodies lying in the streets, including the body that he showed Amy Goodman and the Danish videographer on camera. It was the subsequent evidence that served us from the Pennsylvania detectives who went down who said that they found multiple bodies lying in the streets of Algiers with gunshot wounds and that they themselves heard many confessions and their videotape of yet another vigilante since deported, admitting, boasting of many killings. You know, there’s a huge amount of evidence. And the word “evidence” doesn’t mean that it’s conclusive.

Correspondent: Okay.

Solnit: But there’s an overwhelming amount of evidence that all points to exactly the same thing. And Donnell Herrington — you know, I trust him a lot more than I trust you, for example. And he’s — you know, his story checks out in every way. The doctors who treated him talk about other people coming with bullet, with gunshot wounds. And, you know, there’s a huge pattern that all points to the same thing.

Correspondent: But in relation to the people that Herrington saved on the boat, did you talk to those people who he saved? To have some independent confirmation of his story or anything along those lines? Or…

Solnit: (pause)

Correspondent: Did AC or anybody else? Just to verify his story against other accounts and the like?

Solnit: You know, many say — you know, that wasn’t part of the story that we needed to check out. And, you know, I didn’t verify a lot of other people’s stories that they rescued people, that they did this, that they did that either. Because, you know, this isn’t a legal trial. And Donnell’s story checked out in every way that it needed to check out.

Correspondent: So basically, for you, “evidence” means what they told you on the…

Solnit: You know…

Correspondent: I’m just trying to determine what you meant by “evidence.” Just to figure out. I mean, I happen to agree that videotapes, photographs, and statements are evidence. I’m just trying to determine if there were other additional third party ways of verifying the primary evidence. That way, you have a really all-encompassing — like a ballistics report of the shots that were fired as well. That’s what I’m….

Solnit: You mean, on Donnell’s.

Correspondent: Yeah, exactly.

Solnit: Well, the shotgun wounds, the medical.

Correspondent: Medical reports.

Solnit: The medical reports check out. The doctor checks out. Everything else Donnell said checked out. We spent a great deal of time with him. And then part of the complication is that the coroner perjured himself in the trial, you know, in the fight to get the medical records in court. A lot of those records are missing. The New Orleans Police Department is incredibly corrupt and incompetent. They chose not to investigate the case when Donnell basically came up and said, “Somebody tried to murder me and I want you to look into it.” They have yet to open a case. So the legal — until the FBI stepped up, the legal system had completely ignored this. So the kind of legal testimony that’s often demanded doesn’t exist because the legal system, you know, is not, has not, in New Orleans and Louisiana has not been interested.

Correspondent: But how can you be sure that everything that Herrington said to you is absolutely 100% true? I mean, memory, as we all know, is the worst liar of them all. Even if he had most of the details right, he may have general details….

Solnit: Well, what are you calling into question? That somebody shot him twice with a shotgun at point blank range?

Correspondent: Well, that’s pretty clear based off of what we see.

Solnit: Well, there were two other men with him who corroborated what he had to say. AC Thompson talked to both of them. There’s the doctor who saw him when he came in. And then you have to — you know, and this is how…. Absolute verifiable truth, you know, is a metaphysical question. Courtrooms get into it in some ways. But, you know, this is not a criminal trial. Everything checked out. Everything made sense. We spent a great deal of time with him. I don’t know why you’re calling him into question to begin with, but…

Correspondent: I’m a natural skeptic, that’s all.

Solnit: Why would somebody come up with — how else would somebody in those circumstances get shot? Uh, you know, it’s very clear he got shot twice with it. You know, this is totally fucked up and I can’t believe you’re doing this shit. I think it’s really obnoxious. It’s really off point and really kind of lame. And if you want, there’s a huge preponderance of evidence. It’s been checked out. It’s been checked out by CNN. It’s been checked out by The Nation Magazine. ProPublica, etcetera. You know, I’m not here. You didn’t ask me to bring a huge amount of documentation. I didn’t bring a huge amount of documen….

[Tape runs out]

BSS #312: Rebecca Solnit (Download MP3)

This text will be replaced

Listen: Play in new window | Download

by Edward Champion

White Men Sweep 2009 National Book Awards

Tonight, the National Book Awards gave every major award to a white man, demonstrating that snubbing women writers isn’t limited to Publishers Weekly. Even the honorary awards were given to Dave Eggers and Gore Vidal, proving that even in the 21st century, white men are still capable of winning everything.

The only woman who won an award was Flannery O’Connor for Best of the National Book Awards Fiction. Alas, she’s been dead for over forty-five years.

Here are the winners:

FICTION: Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)

NONFICTION: T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf)

POETRY: Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press)

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE: Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)