A D Jameson

http://adjameson.com

A D Jameson is the author of three books: the story collection Amazing Adult Fantasy (Mutable Sound, 2011), the novel Giant Slugs (Lawrence and Gibson, 2011), and the inspirational volume 99 Things to Do When You Have the Time (Compendium, 2013). His fiction's appeared in Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Unstuck, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Birkensnake, PANK, and elsewhere. Since 2011, he's been a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Besides HTMLGiant, he also contributes to Big Other and PressPlay. He's currently writing a book on geek cinema.

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FYI, Scott Esposito is leading a group reading of William H. Gass’s The Tunnel over at Conversational Reading. It’s three weeks in, goes until  3 November. Schedule’s here.

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The 2012 Realist Sex Novel Kerfuffle (a response to Blake and Stephen, involving also cowboys, Atlas Shrugged, and the Franzen/Marcus debate)

“Ho hum, I profess an interest in these cavorting sea nymphs only inasmuch as I can use them to allegorically comment on the Human Condition.”

Blake has stated, over at Vice, that he doesn’t want to read any more books about straight white people having sex. Stephen has stated, right here, that he is prepared to read many more novels about people fucking. There are substantial differences in these claims that we could pause to examine (“don’t want to read” vs. “am prepared to read”; “straight white people” vs. “people”; “sex” vs. “fucking”), but forgive me if I let those subtleties drop. Because I would rather observe that, if this is the scope of the debate, then it’s akin to one person saying, “I am tired of books about dogs, and no longer want to read more novels about them,” to which someone else replies, “I’m still willing to read some canine fiction.”

Recast in that light, it’s easy to see that neither person is right or wrong. How could they be? It is simply a matter of taste. One man has gotten tired of all those dog books. The other man is not yet so tired. The literary market, no doubt, will cater to them both. And perhaps, over time, demand for dog-free writing will grow, and drown out the pro-dog side, and the market will shift and, for some time, it will be hard to come by a copy of Marley and Me. (Here it might be helpful to replace “dogs” with some other thing, like vampires, or zombies, or alt-lit.) But through it all, one’s preference is perfectly free to steadfastly remain one’s preference. What’s not at stake, in other words, is the right to like whatever you like. The books you read say something about the person you are, and you should be proud of whoever you are! Display your chosen book(s) on the train to signal your affiliation with one of this nation’s many vibrant subcultures. Who knows? Another member of that subculture may spot you, in which case you can exchange nods, smiles, kisses! What’s more, today, thanks to the Internet, you can even make a list of the books that you like, then talk with fellow fans! (There are even web-sites devoted to this!)

Let’s try thinking instead about this argument in terms of genre. A new cowboy movie has comes out, and you and all of your friends go see it. Afterward, you’re wondering whether it’s any good or not …

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Craft Notes / 23 Comments
October 12th, 2012 / 10:04 am

Great First Lines: “Rose Alley” by Jeremy M. Davies

They shot her screen test in Paris, where I’ve never been, in the private room of the café Tout Va Bien, in the Latin Quarter, newly paved in tar, and still lewd that winter with debris from the blockades of stacked cobblestones—centuries old, pried right off the streets—and the stink of some secret catastrophe.

A disclaimer: Jeremy’s a dear friend and former roommate of mine—but c’mon! That opening line is obviously great. & the whole book is simply fabulous. I was motivated to post this because I just recommended, for the dozenth time, no joke, that a fellow writing classmate read the book …

So what’s going on in this opening line?

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Craft Notes / 2 Comments
October 11th, 2012 / 8:17 am

The Internet Political Magazine Blog of the Future

David Fishkind recently asked “Are You Afraid of Politics?“, and a lot of people, myself included, chimed in. Since then I’ve realized I have much more to say on the subject.

I normally don’t think of politics in Democrat/Republican/presidential election terms. I’m registered as an independent, and I prefer to live my politics on a daily basis—which is why I don’t drive, buy organic food when I can, and support local businesses run by people I know, etc. But it would be damn foolish of me to not recognize that “the political is personal” (to invert a phrase), and that the gentle people elected to the state and federal levels regularly impact both my daily life and my career as a writer. Specifically:

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Behind the Scenes / 23 Comments
October 8th, 2012 / 8:01 am

The Ultimate Source?

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Craft Notes & Film / 4 Comments
October 2nd, 2012 / 9:28 am

Birkensnake #5 is now available

Birkensnake #5 cover by Chemlawn (2012).

Ever since its first appearance in 2008, Birkensnake has been one of my favorite fiction journals. It always includes quality work, and is always made available online in addition to its very pretty print editions (a model that I wish more print journals would adopt).

Issue #5 is now online here. And the print edition, which is now completely free (yes!), is available here. (All of the back issues are also available for free now, too—though note that donations are welcome.)

Meanwhile, Birkensnake #6—which will be edited by seven different pairs of editors, and released in seven different editions—is currently accepting submissions.

Finally, here’s a Black Clock interview with Brian Conn and Joanna Ruocco, Birkensnake‘s founders and editors.

I Like __ A Lot / 2 Comments
September 21st, 2012 / 10:16 am

The octopus in the room, or, Help me name a phenomenon

“The Menace of the Hour” by George Luks (30 January 1899)

For a while now I’ve thought that there should be a name for the following phenomenon. You think of something. And then you immediately realize that someone else has to have already thought of that very thing.

For example. A friend asked me what my Halloween costume is going to be. And I jokingly said that I was going to go as the octopus that was deleted from The Goonies. And that alone might be an example of this phenomenon, although it’s not the best example. But my next thought was: I said, “No, I’ll dress up as a businessperson, but I’ll have eight arms, and I’ll wear a pin that says, ‘OCTOPI WALL STREET.'”

And I knew at once that somebody else has already thought of that (the pun, if not the precise realization). That had to. And…voila!

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Word Spaces / 28 Comments
September 14th, 2012 / 11:04 am

Reading Frank Miller’s influences on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy

One more post on the Batman, if you’ll please. It’s no secret that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy drew a lot of inspiration from Frank Miller—specifically, from his 1986 mini-series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and its 1987 follow-up, Year One (which featured art by David Mazzucchelli). And so I felt like taking some time to note all the connections (or at least the ones I can see—feel free to chime in as to what I’ve missed!).

I’ve already commented elsewhere on how Batman Begins took:

  • the Tumbler design (The Dark Knight Returns);
  • Batman’s escape from the police by means of a bat homing device (Year One);
  • and the ending in which Commissioner Gordon muses about the arrival of the Joker, having received one of his calling cards (Year One).

And there are still more connections. Commissioner Gordon’s character arc in that film is similar to the one he follows in Year One—he even has a corrupt partner named Flass. Furthermore, Bruce Wayne distances himself from the Batman by cultivating the image of a drunken playboy:

That’s everything that I can see in the first film.

The Dark Knight is I think the least indebted to Miller of the three films. Nonetheless, its ending, wherein Two-Face kidnaps Gordon’s family, echoes the mob’s kidnapping of Gordon’s family at the conclusion of Year One—Batman even saves Gordon’s son from falling:

Moving on to the The Dark Knight Rises …

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Craft Notes & Film / 20 Comments
September 10th, 2012 / 8:01 am
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How do you think you will die?

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We Need to Talk About Batman

I want to argue that the conceit of Batman having a secret identity no longer works.

It once did, back in the 1930s and ’40s, when Batman was essentially a badass moonlighting in tights, socking hoodlums and thugs in their jaws. At that time, the extent of the audience’s suspension of disbelief was that the fellow wouldn’t get shot.

How simple, compared to today. The Batman of 2012 is a one-man paramilitary force capable of investing hundreds of millions of dollars into being the Caped Crusader—a one-man Blackwater USA! Frank Miller was right: there’s no way that the U.S. government would permit this guy to exist:

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, page 84 (detail)

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Craft Notes & Film / 29 Comments
September 3rd, 2012 / 8:01 am