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.

Something Film Understands but that Literature Doesn’t

I was talking with Jeremy M. Davies recently (actually, we were on our way to see Drive), and the topic of genre as art came up. Now, Jeremy and I are both huge into genre, in all media. We’re nuts over spy thrillers, sci-fi, and fantasy, for instance—not to mention Batman comics. (Only the good ones, though, natch.)

And of course lots of people in various lit scenes (all over) don’t think that genre fiction can be art. They’re really wedded to that “high art / low art” divide. (Or the “literary fiction / all else” divide, as it’s so commonly called.)

Me and J, we were saying how we don’t get it. How can someone read, for instance, Patricia Highsmith’s Ripliad and not recognize it as total artistic brilliance? Or Philip K. Dick’s VALIS, which is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, hands down? And of course I’d argue that Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is one of the finest things published in the 1980s, “despite its being” a comic book. (I didn’t spend all that time analyzing it at Big Other because I thought it was merely cute.)

Anyway, I came to a certain conclusion…

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Random / 111 Comments
October 15th, 2011 / 1:24 am

Cliché as Necessity (Birthing Innovation)

Not entirely an unexpected situation.

Every time I’ve said something nice about Drive, someone has responded by calling the film “clichéd.” Well, I intend to keep saying nice things about Drive (as well as other artistic genre films), so let’s take some time here and now to address that criticism, demonstrating how even when certain material or situations might be clichéd, the artist can still find occasions for artistic expression. Indeed, I want to go so far as to suggest that clichéd situations often provide artists with some of the best opportunities for innovation.

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Craft Notes & Film / 48 Comments
October 12th, 2011 / 11:56 pm

Let’s watch a scene from “Drive” and analyze it

Three scenes, actually:

What do we have here?

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Film / 20 Comments
October 11th, 2011 / 2:16 am

A Night With Steve Katz

This Wednesday, October 12, 7–9pm, at the KGB Bar, NYC. Hosted by Louffa Press in celebration of Steve’s new fiction broadside:

The native New Yorker has threatened to bless us with his world of experimental fiction, flying all the way from Denver to woo his audience with tales of personal mishaps with traditional jazz legend Louis Armstrong, plants that grow human body-parts, cautionary tales of the electric fence, the unswerving wisdom of Italian prostitutes and old school New York City.

The broadside (Slave Husbandry) is a limited numbered edition of 50, handprinted on swarthy yet sophisticated recycled artisan paper, inked and pressed on the Vandercook Universal One letterpress. The large format broadsides (19″x12″) will be available at the event for your enjoyment and (italics) for your pleasure.

Also reading will be David Moscovich, Eileen Myles, Ted Pelton, and Mike Topp. It’s free and I wish I could be there. More info about Steve and the other readers after the jump…

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Events / Comments Off on A Night With Steve Katz
October 10th, 2011 / 12:48 pm

Death x 3: Frances Bay, Curtis White on lit’s (lack of) future, & “Why Originality Isn’t All That Important”

1. Charles Napier isn’t the only one who’s left us: Frances Bay passed away last month. No creamed corn was served at her memorial service.

2. My mentor Curtis White wrote something pretty pessimistic at Lapham’s Quarterly about the future of literature.

3. I wrote something a little more optimistic about why originality isn’t all that important.

Roundup / 25 Comments
October 8th, 2011 / 8:42 pm

Reminder! HTMLGIANT Meetup: “Two-Lane Blacktop” (Chicago)

Warren Oates, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird, and James Taylor in "Two-Lane Blacktop."

This weekend (October 8th & 9th), Chicago’s Music Box Theatre is screening Monte Hellman and Rudy Wurlitzer‘s 1971 masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop. Long overlooked, Two-Lane has for the past five years or so been enjoying a critical renaissance, and is increasingly regarded as one of the greatest films of the ’70s. (Click here to read some of my own thoughts on it.) And right now is an especially opportune time to see it, what with its grandchild Drive currently killing things in theaters.

There are two screenings, one Saturday, one Sunday, each at 11:30 AM. I’ll be attending the Saturday 11:30 AM show. Anyone care to join me? The movie is 102 minutes long and I was thinking we could grab a coffee afterward, before peeling out onto our nation’s highways.

(Yes, Two-Lane Blacktop really does star James Taylor and Dennis Wilson—in their only film roles! No, they don’t sing, nor is any of their music used in the movie. Yes, they’re both incredible—though it’s Oates who really steals the show.)

… And here’s Chicago Reader contributor Ben Sachs’s Cine-File write-up:

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Events & Film / 12 Comments
October 7th, 2011 / 11:12 am
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R.I.P. Charles Napier, 1936–2011. You will be missed but you will live on forever in your cinema! I’ll be watching Beyond the Valley of the Dolls soon in your honor… (P.S. Please give my regards to Mr. Thompson!)

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HTMLGIANT Meetup: “Two-Lane Blacktop” (Chicago)

Warren Oates, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird, and James Taylor in "Two-Lane Blacktop."

This coming weekend (October 8th & 9th), Chicago’s Music Box Theatre is screening Monte Hellman and Rudy Wurlitzer‘s 1971 masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop. Long overlooked, Two-Lane has for the past five years or so been enjoying a critical renaissance, and is increasingly regarded as one of the greatest films of the ’70s. (Click here to read some of my own thoughts on it.) And right now is an especially opportune time to see it, what with its grandchild Drive currently killing things in theaters.

There are two screenings, one Saturday, one Sunday, each at 11:30 AM. I’ll be attending the Saturday 11:30 AM show. Anyone care to join me? The movie is 102 minutes long and I was thinking we could grab a coffee afterward, before peeling off onto our nation’s highways.

(Yes, Two-Lane Blacktop really does star James Taylor and Dennis Wilson—in their only film roles! No, they don’t sing, nor is any of their music used in the movie. Yes, they’re both incredible—though it’s Oates who really steals the show.)

Events & Film / 5 Comments
October 3rd, 2011 / 9:01 am

DRIVE

You’ve probably heard by now that Drive is very, very good. That’s because Drive is very, very good. Indeed, it’s about as good as a Hollywood film can be these days—it even bears comparison with the great B-movies of the late ’70s / early ’80s, which supposedly went extinct when Hollywood transformed itself into a industry of nothing but A-movies. (Box Office Mojo lists Drive’s production budget as $15 million, which is half as much as Woody Allen’s most recent film.)

After the jump is a spoiler-free list of ten things that I loved about the film.

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Film / 113 Comments
October 1st, 2011 / 12:40 pm

HTMLGIANT Matrix

Random / 15 Comments
September 26th, 2011 / 12:05 pm