Chris Higgs’s COLORLESS GREEN IDEAS SLEEP FURIOUSLY
New from Publishing Genius’s ‘This PDF Chapbook‘ series, what is now probably my favorite of all of the releases thus far, a new one from the megabrained Chris Higgs:
Mary Gaitskill on Slate’s Open Book
The amazing Mary Gaitskill has a new book out. I like all of Gaitskill’s work, but her stories especially, and so I’m very excited about this new book, which I don’t own yet, but hope to very soon. Slate reviewed the book the other day, and they liked it. Gaitskill also appeared on Slate’s Open Book series, which they produce in collaboration with the NYU creative program program. Gaitskill sits down with Meghan O’Rourke and Deborah Landau, to talk about her new book and read from it. One of my favorite things about Open Book is that they post two versions of each interview: the ~10 minute version that gets spotlighted on Slate, but also the extended (ie complete) version of the conversation, which can last upwards of a half hour.
Gaitskill Open Book, abridged version. For harcore fans: uncut version here.
Previous episodes of Open Book have included conversations with John Ashbery (abridged here; uncut here) and Junot Diaz (for some reason I can only find the short version of that one).
The classical education I never had: Hekabe
Thus was Hector smote. Smoten?
After reading Herakles, a play in which a man-god returns from hell only to savagely, accidentally kill his beloved wife and children, I figured I had seen the worst that Euripides’ Grief Lessons had to offer. I was wrong.
I have had for some years on my computer a file called “unpleasantness of Euripides,” in which I place at random thoughts on this subject, in hopes that the file will someday add up to an answer to the question, Why is Euripides so unpleasant? Certainly he is. Certainly I am not the only person who thinks so. Not the only person whose heart sinks at the prospect of reading, teaching or attending one of his plays.
Nice introduction. Anne Carson will translate Euripides, but she doesn’t have to like him. I respect that. In the second of four Grief Lessons, Carson introduces us to Hekabe, who bore many brave sons to Priam, the slain king of Troy (she also apparently “knew” some other fella and consequently popped out some “baggage” named Polydoros). After the sack of Troy, the ghost of Achilles shows up and demands a blood sacrifice. Hekabe’s daughter Polyxena pulls the short straw, and compounded as it is with news of her son Polydoros’s death by betrayal and drowning at the hands of the thrice cursed goat of a Thracian, Polymestor, you know Hekabe is gonna get pre-medieval on some poor fool. But who? READ MORE >
Booklyfe 2
Literary Multiplier / Critical Mass
And here’s Norman Lock on small presses & print vs. digital, via Eugene Lim’s wonderful blog.
A select bit from Norman, and my thoughts:
…To acknowledge such a limitation is to accept a reduced role for the writer. I do not believe that what I write can change the world or the people in it. I don’t believe that anything written by a contemporary literary artist has that power over a mass audience. There are some who believe they can restructure consciousness using language and narratives that defy convention. But their visionary writing will scarcely be read by the people most in need of a transformed consciousness. The only work that has power to engage a mass audience is sentimental (which is a lie) or pornographic (which is also a lie, though perhaps a more entertaining one). We can rue this. We can set down the causes to mainstream publishing or to a degeneration in popular taste and appreciation that have little to do with literacy. But we can and should seek out our own margin and make our literature there.
I Love Bingo Gazingo So Fucking Much I Can’t Shit
definitely not reciting poetry
Bingo Gazingo is some kind of old man who writes and performs ‘songs’ without any accompanying instruments. He insists that it is not poetry. Poetry is too limiting for him.
From an article from the new york times website:
“Poets are all in their right place,” [Bingo] always explains, “but a songwriter can go anywhere.”
Huh? Anyways.
READ MORE >
Samuel Ligon’s DRIFT AND SWERVE
Just out from Autumn House Press, the new collection from one of my favorite people around, Samuel Ligon, titled ‘Drift and Swerve.’
I’ve been reading this book slowly for the past few weeks now, taking my time with each story in the collection, as the scope here is just ridiculous: I’ve really never seen an author who can speak in so many different modes and voices, all while sounding from the same pen, and of a unified and extremely singular vision.
Holy Sh*t file: “A radiocative cut in the earth that will not stay closed”
First of all, a big & hearty hat tip to Mathias Svalina for this- he was a real sport when I dicked around with iPod, and then he sent me this amazing and terrifying link to this essay by Tom Zoellner in Scientific American:
Click through anywhere above to get to the full article, which is itself an extract from Zoellner’s new book, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Reshaped the World, which is just out now from Viking. The SF-Gate seems to have liked it. Oh, and here’s Zoellner’s own website.
Hi, My Name is Kathy Acker: Part 1
(Dodie Bellamy in Kathy Acker’s Clothing.) But I’m special. There’s something special about me as far as sex goes. There’s always been. You have to treat me that way or else get out.
What follows may not be safe for work! All excerpts are from Kathy Goes to Haiti:
Zack Sternwalker Impressed Me, Continues to Impress Me
Zack Sternwalker is a person who lives in my neighborhood in Oakland, but I’ve never met him. I’ve emailed him a few times. He seems nice. I solicited him for this is stupid I love you, but he didn’t want to do it. Then he sent us something for great, but we didn’t want to use it.
His books are very cheap (like $2) and very nicely printed and have drawings inside. READ MORE >
More fun with Mathias Svalina’s iPod
It’s really obscene that I still have this thing in my possession. Well, supposedly I’m going to see him tomorrow at a reading at Pete’s Candy Store, so I figured I should make the most of what time remains. Today instead of focusing on a letter, I’m going Onion-stlye and SHUFFLE IT. The little machine tells me it’s got 11387 tracks on it, so this should be pretty good. Seatbelts on?