375,000 pounds of litter we left on the moon
11. Kevin Wilson short interview at The Short Review.
I cannot imagine a question I’d ask that would have an answer I’d be happy hearing.
10. Money. FC2 gets cash! Oh, and there is a 25% sale on For Whom the Bells Toll (now $58,500). Even Shakespeare couldn’t make money with all this internet bullshit, waaaaaaa.
9. Best title, best profile ever.
8. Dude prints out an 1818 edition of John Keats’ book Endymion on New York’s first espresso book machine. Wow.
375,000: Hi, I am vapid. Lady GaGa’s boyfriend (a nightclub manager/long-distance runner/deejay/certified personal trainer/semi-pro bowler) is a notorious drunk. He is also really fit. His blog here. Now he is writing a weight loss book called “The Drunk Diet.” OK.
14th of Something I Hear
Mornings with clouds. Windy mornings. Mornings with black wind rushing like water. The trees quiver, the windows are creaking like a ship. It’s going to rain.
Yes, I’m sure of it. I’m going to meet her. Of course, I’m a little drunk, a little reckless, and in an amiable condition that lets me see myself destined as her lover, cutting into her life with perfect ease.
James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime is my choice for best love novel ever. I don’t know what that means, exactly. But the prose alone will make you believe in that skittering ghost. People do see it, they say. That’s what good prose does–makes you believe. You’ll see something here, in these pages. The story is devastating. And sensual (one of the finer forms of devastation). Go ahead, name your best “love” book ever. Go ahead. It’s OK. If no, read this one, I say.
It is Friday: Go Write Ahead.
Brood, I do, on myself naked
She handed me a full glass and said, “This is the last drink you will ever take”
Are you equally unspectacular?
If you love me, as I love you
We’ll both be friendly and untrue
When you go. Go TV spots and skywriting. I mean it
I am surprised and pleased at the recent abundance of the nearly naked
I am not even going to drink. Only beer or brandy
We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place
Our friend the owl
Something has been said for sobriety but very little
Smears brandy on the trampling boot
Up to the bar on a donkey!
Blessings on thee, little man
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan
But helicopters
9 hand-painted maps of imaginary islands
9. I’m sort of blar of folks saying the words in first line “Call me Ishmael” are “so intense and effective that they go down in history.” That’s revisionist as Gary Kasparov. The reason “Call me Ishmael” is a boss first line can be found 212,757 words later.
9. Some good books written by musicians if that’s your thang-a-lang.
9. Anybody else want to ban the word moon from all contemporary poetry?
9. Deb Olin Unferth Revolution ‘review.’ Somebody call roll, because we got a lack of class up in here. Oddly, Mr. Robert P. Baird doesn’t really do any reviewing, per se. He might have read the book, not sure. Here’s a snarky line, not about the actual book, etc:
Today, Ms. Unferth is a narrowly but deeply admired writer of fiction, hailed wherever the names Diane Williams and Gary Lutz hold currency.
Hold currency, oh man. I was actually waiting for MRPB to break into tipsy doggerel next.
9. I should talk a bit about hooking and hooking up and the girl libertine.
Do say.
Mark Twain’s Biography Told by a Selection from the Index in His Autobiography (UC Press, 2010)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, money earned from, 372, 597
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, McDougal’s cave, 397
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, 116, 499
Alexander VI (pope), 623
Alexander the Great, 465, 476
Alonzo Child (steamboat), 614
Animals: cat given Pain-Killer, 52, 351-52, 588; Clemens family cats, 345; compared to humans, 186-87, 218-220, 312
Belgium, 581
Bermuda, 479, 654
Bonaparte, Catherine, Princess, 540
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 172, 465, 500, 507, 540, 550
Caesar, Julius, 465, 467
Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo, 5, 6, 15
Charles I (king of England), 204, 526, 528
Charles II (king of England( 526
Cincinnati, Ohio, 461, 559, 646, 651
Clemens, Clara Langdon (Bay): death of mother, 25
Clemens, Jane Lampton: facility with words, 212; on SLC’s [Mark Twain] drinking and swearing, 215-16, 268, slaves owned and hired, 212, 471, 528; love of animals, 199.
Clemens, John Marshal: undemonstrative nature, 274, 321
Clemens: infant habits, 363
Clemens, Orion: middle-of-night visit to young lady, 52, 454
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne (Mark Twain): Freemasonry, 651; seventieth birthday dinner, 267-68, 305, 558, 657-61
ATTITUDES AND HABITS: dinner table behavior, 387-88; dueling, 294-98, 570-71; eating and drinking, 137, 210-12…; laziness, 305, 391; lying, 5, 268-69, 277, 425, 630; Presbyterian conncience, 157-59…; sleeping, 659-60; writing speed, 8, 228; CHILDHOOD: left behind by family, 209, 379, 530; sweethearts, 417-18
Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, 101, 481, 494, 560
Doctors: Olivia Clemens’s experience as a teenage invalid, 356, 590-91
Drinking: anecdote about Episcopal sextons, 398-99; anecdote about drunken sutler, 290-91
France: SLC’s [Mark Twain] burlesque map of Paris, 362-63, 593. See also Joan of Arc
German language: compound word, 118-19; German nursemaid who uses profanity (Elise), 394, 607
Grant, Ulysses S.: similarity to Jervis Langdon, 373, 598; spiritual advisor, 99-100
Hannibal, Mo. Cave near, 213-14, 481-19, child left behind during move, 209, 379, 530, 600; cholera and measles epidemics, 52, 352, 420-21, 589, 628; tragedies that SLC [Mark Twain] witnessed as a child, 157-159, 514-15, 610
Howels, William Dean: SLC’s letters to, about “old pigeon-holed things,” 13, 30
Insurance company scandal, 257, 268, 271, 364-66, 464, 549
Langdon, Charles Jarvis: wagon incident, 357-58
Leopold II (king of Belgium), 268, 557
Life on the Mississippi: prototype of Huck’s father, 531-32; tramp’s death, 157-58, 514
Munro, David A., 564; as editor of North American Review, 47, 54, 54n102, 672, as Players club member, 284-85, 432, 547, 548
Nevada Territory: dueling in, 294-98, 568-70, SLC as miner, 445, 447, 543, 553, 641, 651
New Orleans: SLC seeks ship for South America, 561
Nicholas I (tzar of Russia), 540
Nicholas II (tsar of Russia), 550
Religion: Catholic funerals, 293-94; SLC’s [Mark Twain] Presbyterian conscience, 157-59, 188, 190, 398, 514; Susy Clemens’s “What is it all for?” question, 326, 375, 419, 580
“Roughing It” lecture, 508
Slavery: woman who saves SLC from drowning, 401, 613
Twichell, Joseph H: advice fro anxious suitor, 414-16; anecdote of hair restorer, 289; encounter with profane ostler, 8; witnesses execution of Civil War deserters, 430-31, 632-33
Victoria (Queen of England), 115-16, 126, 499, 501, 527
Whitmore, Franklin Gray, 316, 496, 621; spoon-shaped drive incident, 342-43, 587
Wuthering Heights (servant), 120-24, 500
***
Ben Shattuck is a writer and editor living in San Francisco. He contributes to The Daily Rumpus and interns at McSweeney’s.
Author Spotlight / Comments Off on Mark Twain’s Biography Told by a Selection from the Index in His Autobiography (UC Press, 2010)
February 9th, 2011 / 1:39 pm
February 9th, 2011 / 1:39 pm
“Last April I hurt my knee doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu” : 6 Questions W/ Jesse Ball
[Jesse Ball’s latest novel, The Curfew, will be released from Vintage on June 14th. Last month Shane Jones caught up with Jesse about the new book via email. – ed.]
SJ: When I first interviewed you back in 2007 we spoke a little about how fast you write your books (some in several weeks) and I’d like to go back to that discussion. Specifically, how fast your books feel to a reader (the latest feels even faster than your first two books). I literally could not stop reading THE CURFEW because it felt like I was being pulled along, my eyes kind of racing over the words. Is this something you consciously try to implore in your novels? Was THE CURFEW written in the same short-time/style as the others?
JB: Even more quickly, actually.
I feel very strongly the burden that a writer ought to tell a tale and that the writer should do it so properly and well that the reader forgets himself or herself. There are many other things I do (or try to do), but that is the first.
Interview: Jennifer S. Cheng
I know in the past many writers have been dismayed by Hong Kong’s literary scene, or lack of, as in literary journals, readings, events. Have things changed?
I can’t speak for the Chinese-language literary scene, but it’s true that the English-language literary community is very small. Aesthetically there is a lack of diversity. I don’t know if it’s the linguistic situation or the ever-looming financial/business culture, but lately I’ve been wondering if the lack in the literary arts has also to do with the city’s struggle with identity; I recently attended a lecture where the speaker pointed out that historically HK was never given the chance to shape its own sense of identity. And if you think about places where the arts flourish, or even the inception of American literature, it usually coincides with a strong sense of self-identity. Much of the literary scene also seems to be expat, which I suppose makes logical sense, but HK has such an interesting relationship with the English language, I find myself wishing for a more heterogeneous mix of writers. I do sense, though, that the literary arts is burgeoning–there’s even a new MFA program this year–which means every literary person here has the chance to be a part of the conversation in shaping Hong Kong’s literary identity. So it’s a really exciting opportunity for birthing those journals, readings, events
It is AWP Friday: Go Right the Hell Ahead
A lot of my life is eating soup with a fork
Huge red dirty wall fog
Oh, sod you!
I’d rather be dead than think about death
Drink chose me
Bars are the only sparks
Spouses, money, James Joyce, beer?
Give me my duff. And pour custard on it from a ladle
Bad publicity? Your own obituary
Ah, I never get no snout
I smoked my way half-way through the book of Genesis and three inches of my mattress
Old potatoes, cold
11 Pringle cans of furled knees
14. WTF? I thought Shane Jones killed February? (as noted) Today I learned that freezing rain is different than sleet. The hayseed fear-mongering weatherman just went simile on the ice; he said, “It’s like a candy shell.” Not bad, though a discord of tone. University dismisses the pacing, caged jaguar of classes; milk and bread sales go all Kelly Clarkson; and I wonder how many sit at home on their MePhones? Just years ago would have been a book for every downtime: waiting room while oil is changed, the vehicle registration line, the afternoon at the bar, this big-ass blizzard. Now it’s a phone. Just saying, but not me. I’m about to cuddle up with Into Thin Air and my Hobart flask.
9. To shit you or to shit you not. I shit you not. Reality rajah Mark Burnett is making literary Cliff’s Notes (yes, those little yellow pamphlets that borrow their color scheme from roadsigns) into a TV comedy series. OK.
1. Dawn Raffel at Willow Springs (with all kinds of good extra links).
94. Look here you smarmy-asses: novels in which the author appears as himself!
2. A sudden thought: What if AWP is snowed in and everyone having to sleep on the Book Fair floor curled inside their satchels, lean-tos made of idiosyncratic eyeglasses, perfect-bound tents of spine-broken books? And when the power fails, what book will we burn first for heat?
Death to February
That I hate February so much is one of the reasons I love Shane Jones’s Light Boxes. To mark the first of this horrid month, here are two questions I posed to Shane.
CL: Does February feel like it lasts a few years to you, the way it does in Light Boxes?
Shane Jones: It feels long, like another month hiding inside February, but not a few years. It mostly feels like I’m wearing a blanket of sludge-ice and still trying to go to work and smile at everyone in my sludge-ice blanket.
CL: Given the chance, would you actually remove February from existence?
SJ: Probably not because as much as I’ve talked and written about February, I kind of like it. It’s comparable to Oscar the Grouch. You hate Oscar because he’s a scummer, but you also like him because he’s just exactly who he is, Oscar the fucking Grouch. Every once in a while I have a vision of spending all of February in a place like Los Angeles. That would be a different experience from New York.