Matthew Simmons
Matthew Simmons lives in Seattle.
Enough with all this literature. Let’s have some ukulele music!
Here’s something else. Embedding of this youtube video has been disabled, so please follow this link. And then come back.
That was Cliff Edwards or “Ukulele Ike,” known to many of us as the voice of Disney’s Jiminy Cricket. As you can see, in addition to his career as a Vaudevillian, Edwards was also a World War I interrogator of German prisoners. In the video, we see him (and a fellow Imperialist American torturer slash tap dancer) engaged in some Abu Ghraib-style tactics, playing music that the subject clearly finds unbearable.
No doubt she moments later spilled all sorts of beans about the Kaiser’s plans, eh? Possibly she revealed the location of Wilhelm II mustache wax factory.
Literary tie-in: Cliff Edwards was born in Hannibal, Missouri. Also from Hannibal? Mark Twain, author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. Discuss.
Eyeball it
My friend Ryan has been writing a column about film on The Rumpus for a little while now, and I thought I’d bring it to your attention. I’ve been enjoying it.
Here’s a nice post on the movie Old Joy, a movie I wrote about on the Hobart blog. (Link in the comment I made to the post, if you’re interested.)
Here’s an interesting take on Guy Maddin’s Dracula. (Dracula is currently my favorite Maddin film. I had, until watching it, never really connected with ballet.)
And here’s a post about Lord of the Rings and the War on Terror.
Classic Word Spaces 2: Chekhov’s Desk
I did a search for Chekhov’s desk and the above image was what came up.
There it is, everyone. Chekhov’s desk. As we all know, Chekhov was a physician. Thus, Chekhov cared about the health of his wrists. He wanted to be able to write without pain. This explains his use of a tilt-y desk, I’m guessing.
Remember those kneeling chairs everyone bought during the ’80s? You might not realize this, but in addition to inventing the modern short story, Chekhov also invented those. That’s why so many writers use them. They are good for your back and they also inspire you to write powerfully observed short fiction that limns the human condition in subtle, masterful ways.
Here’s a picture of someone using one. It may or may not be author Cynthia Ozick*:
* Disclaimer: This is probably not Cynthia Ozick.
Classic Word Spaces: Leo Tolstoy
That’s Tolstoy’s desk. I’m not sure where he put his laptop, though. Maybe on top of the blotter. He probably moved all the stuff and put his laptop on the blotter.
He probably also had wi-fi and didn’t have to plug it into his DSL line.
Also—is that a tongue depressor in the cup? Why did he keep a tongue depressor in a pen cup on his writing desk? Do you think he was always pulling out a mirror and checking his uvula for swelling?
The Behavior of Pidgeons
Another short update. Here is a story by my friend Gabriel Blackwell from Portland. It makes me think about math cranks, those autodidacts who pester tenured professors at our nation’s major universities.
I think this is Gabe’s first published anything, and it is on Conjunctions. Way to go, Gabe.
Grace Paley takes heads
She does. Honest. Takes head and doesn’t give them back.
Example from the story “Wants”:
He had had a habit throughout the twenty-seven years of making a narrow remark which, like a plumber’s snake, could work its way through the ear down the throat, halfway to my heart. He would disappear, leaving me choking with equipment.
Here’s what I notice about this: that shouldn’t have worked. The metaphor—the plumber’s snake entering the ear and making its way near the heart—should come off as cliche. Familiar. A little silly. Following it up with “…leaving me choking with equipment,” redeems it.
Writers: push a cliche to the point where it strains to near snapping and you revive it.
Man, that’s a funny line.
Harold Pinter, RIP
Harold Pinter, who used his Nobel Prize win lecture to really give it to U.S. foreign policy, has died.
A few minutes from The Birthday Party:
Andrew W.K. reads Ann Beattie
Go here to listen to Andrew W.K. reading an Ann Beattie story.
Take THAT, Tao Lin!
Take that and, you know, really enjoy it. If you want.
Bob Ross, Avant-Garde Artist
Someone offered Margaret Atwood a machine that would allow her to sign books from her home. It was like a little robot hand with a pen. And it would do what she was doing. She would sign her name, and the robot hand would follow her hand’s motion and sign a book for a fan who came to a robot hand book signing. Atwood would stay home, and the hand would travel around the country. Someone would approach the hand—which would be sitting on a table—and put a book down under the pen. And Margaret Atwood would—somewhere in Cananda, sitting at her coffee table—sign a piece of paper and the robot hand would sign the book.
Dear Leader
Blake Butler—our fearless leader here at htmlgiant—has a novella coming from the mighty Calamari Press. Go here to pre-order it.
That is all.