This Week in Ghost Writing
I don't know. Here's this guy covered in bees. What is happening?
1. A little while ago I put up a note about ghost-writing, wondering if anyone had done it or would. Since then I found out that Ben Greenman ghost-wrote Gene Simmons’s tell-all memoir, which sounds like fun in a weird way. In the interview they don’t ask any follow up questions which is ridiculous considering the title of the piece is “Ben Greenman Ghost-Wrote the Celebrity Tell-All for Gene Simmons.” All I can think of is a boy-faced Greenman trying to have a normal conversation with Simmons as he’s decked out in full KISS attire, or Greenman calling ex-lovers with cigarette-punctured voices to fact check which drugs they were taking when.
2. If you’re in the mood to get upset, have a look at this article about James Frey’s book-factory scheme. A friend who’s working on a book for them suggested I pitch one, too. It seems like basically a terrible idea. I feel greasy just thinking about it. Why are the MFA programs letting this crazy man into their classrooms? I do not know. I am currently abandoning hope. In general, I mean. All hope.
Will some of the trolls please have a look at the article and spew some much-deserved anger in the thread? Thanks. This one is ripe for a shouting match. (If only it were still Mean Week!)
{LMC}: What We Talked About This Week in LMC
Robb Todd wrote a nice little thing about Scott Garson’s Silt.
Andy Devine’s Apartment City, much discussed by the LMC, is discussed more closely by Tom DeBeauchamp.
Owen Kaelin takes a look at New York Tyrant 8 as a whole.
Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter
Mike Young and Askold Melnyczuk at RIDE, FLY, PENETRATE, LOITER: A Barry Hannah Tribute, November 3rd, 2010, organized by Friend-of-Giant Gene Kwak, at Newtonville Books, Newton, MA.
A List Without Numbers Is Still a List
When people say “the pleasures of the novel” what do they mean? This is a serious question. Please answer in the comments. An interested party would like to know.
The New York Times will start ranking e-book bestsellers in the new year.
Over at The Awl, Maria Bustillos writes of loving her new Kindle and fearing fascism.
reeding
1. do you feel the need to finish a book you start?
2. what is the book by the author you read that book you’re pretty much done/you got that author down?
3. what book of poetry made you finally tolerate poetry?
4. what is the book you were reading and you thought, “I wish this book would keep on walking. I am blar it has ended, I am liquid-glandful and low. Keep going, book.”
5. what is the book (maybe assigned or some shit) you were reading and your serial bowl/crayonium went “Fuck I wish this book was over”?
6. what is the book you don’t want to see go electronic?
7. what’s the book people like but you doubt they read the whole thing?
8. what is the book you mark up with ink/lead/cur-ear (or did) the most?
9. what is the book you keep saying you’ll read but most likely will not?
10. what is the book you own the most copies of? one at your work, in the car floor, hollowed out for your secret letters/oregano, another in the kitchen junk drawer, one at your lover’s place, one at your spouse’s, one tonguing dust balls beneath the fridge, a page tacked on some old wall?
11. what is the book you’ve stolen the most from?
12. what is the book you are not returning–the one you actually stole?
What the hell are they yelling?
Glenn Beck, currently getting people all worked up about George Soros, took a little time out to—through heavy, unsubtle implication—get people all worked out about Esperanto. (Which he believes is called “Esperanza.” What a cutey!) One language! One government! One world! Communism! Or one of the other bad ones!
I can’t be the only one who wishes the damn New World Order would get a move on and take over and turn the world into a grand fascist, communist, socialist dictatorship already. I’m sick of listening to these people. Am I? Or can we get the Reptilians to hurry up and invade? Haven’t they softened us up enough yet?
But I can’t think of a better reason than Beck’s mentioning of “esperanza” to post a piece of the William Shatner esperanto movie Incubus. (Done above.)
And ask the following question: what’s your favorite constructed language? Is it the language that Sigur Ros, Magma, or Ruins sing/sang in? Klingon? Elvish?
Mess Section, anti-fragile edition
Nassim Taleb has posted a table illustrating his concepts of fragility, robustness & anti-fragility. Context: “This seems quite a universal traits of languages (I tried Mediterranean, classical, and Semitic languages),where the notion of antifragility is totally absent.” :: Noah Cicero gives a short history of philosophy. :: Jonathon Keats tries to make porn for God. :: Sententia #3 wants novel pitches/excerpts. :: gifs get subtle. :: “I often heard [D.W. Griffith] say that he would rather have written one page of Leaves of Grass than to have made all the movies for which he received world acclaim.”
5 serve meat over mashed
11. A blue phone told an apple told a little bird and the little bird told me Willow Springs would really like to leer some glow right now. You can submit online. Stop touching your lovely forehead–submit!
5.
Word of mouth, true word of mouth – the good stuff, that actually sends the recommendee skipping off to the nearest bookshop or library – involves the impassioned retelling of a story.
No, not really, Mr. Gibbs. Not necessarily what word-of-mouth means at all, not when someone is sharing a book with me, or me with them. A plot outline? A re-telling of the story? Does anyone here (especially here) recommend books based on words, sentences, worlds created outside context of “what’s happening?” It will fuck your brain. Is that a story re-telling? And how do you recommend books of poetry based on story? Oh man, it’s about this bird that meets McDonald’s fries and they have a kid named Inability of Man to Truly Communicate. Word-of-mouth, the spreading of art by talk/phone/net (fuck Twitter)/blar is delivered in many varieties. I like a lot of books I don’t understand as “story.” It seems reductive, I’m just saying.
55. Aimee Bender gives a pep talk to the Battle Star Galactica people, I mean the NaNoWriMoMoFoSho peeps.
555. And Lucy Corin said, “I love the days I get to write forward from just my head, but those days are hard earned.”
14. Hey flashers! I know you’re there because I keep seeing you naked. Nice penis! Funky loins! Also don’t forget about the Rose Metal Press Fifth Annual Short Short Chapbook contest judged by Kim Chinquee. You miss 100% of the cigars you never unwrap, or something about Wayne Gretzky, something.
COOKS SOURCE EDITORIAL MEETING
Just when I thought I’d never watch another Downfall redub. The lovely thing about this, of course, is that it’s fair use.