Rounding Up, Rounding Down
Stephen Burt reviews Mark Bibbins’s The Dance of No Hard Feelings at Coldfront. He gives the book 8.5 out of 10 stars, and declares the poet “inescapably sexy”–this pretty much sums it up, but probably you should read the whole review.
Found this blog recently, via can’t remember what. It showcases what purport to be genuine letters from notable cultural persons. They offer a copy of each letter as well as a typed transcription. Letters of Note.
Ever since Jeremy Schmall turned me on to John Gallaher’s blog, my feelings about poetryland have been just a little bit brighter.
Last week I went to see Jonathan Lethem read from Chronic City at NYU. The reading was enjoyable, but the real standout for me was the Q&A, which I found especially powerful. JL talks with Darin Strauss about influence, composition, struggling to get that first book done, and the responsibility you feel to re-issued books that you write the introductions for. (Lethem recently prefaced Nathaniel West’s Miss Lonelyhearts / Day of the Locust for New Directions; first time that book’s ever had an introduction.) Anyway, while you’re over at the NYU page, you might want to check out some of their other recent podcasts- Lydia Davis, Forrest Gander, Colum McCann with Padgett Powell, which in fact I’m going to enjoy with my breakfast right now. The main page for the series is here.
Last but hardly least, I’m going to make a semi-concerted effort from now on to illustrate these posts with the work of visual artists I admire, instead of just random shit I Googled for. So pleased for you to meet J.L. Schnabel, an old friend of mine and a fantastic artist and writer and jewelrymaker. She blogs here, and writes for the more-SFW-than-it-sounds art website Fecal Face. Her most recent piece is a studio visit with John John Jesse.
Group Effort #2 Results
It’s fitting that the author of the book that inspired my new favorite tv show should appear in this piece, particularly due to his “abiding hatred” for the blogosphere. Thanks to all who participated. in the second installment of Group Efforts!
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS [REDUX]
We are goober. We are brontosaurus. In the back of a car, we are dumb luck.
We drink our quiet through a straw and piss whispers behind the neighbor’s shed.
Sometimes, when we are sleeping, ferns the size of houses make us cry. Not because we are sad. But because they are beautiful. And we are hungry.
*They,* however, have shown no interest in us or our activities. For that we are grateful, though not a little bemused.
Was it not they who, after considerable wining and dining, sold us on moving here?
Did they not offer our sons their daughters? We must be vigilant, lest we be unmoored.
[Our parents have no idea! Even though we are so close to home! They never know we are hungry! They never think we are asleep!]
And so one night we wake, the hunger in our heads spilling out like lantern light at last.
We shake our daughters from sleep and dress them, lacing their toe shoes and lowering their tulle veils. We tiptoe down the courtyard, past our full and sleeping parents, and lead our dancing daughters to their bridal feast.
Our greed is a moonslice on the gravel.
[I saw Buzz Bissinger in Pittsburgh. He sounds a lot like Lewis Black. Called a guy who asked a dumb, confrontational question a “fuckhead.” I like Buzz Bissinger a good deal.]
“Oh, woe!” cried the sisters. The tulle-veiled, toe-shoed, whispering fern-dream sisters. “We don’t like Pittsburgh! And we don’t like Lewis Black! Please don’t make us marry him! He sprays spittle! Every time he speaks!”
*Please don’t make us…
I read that Buzz Bissinger hung himself the next day. He didn’t even leave a note.
Just a birthday card from his mother. The card was three weeks late and did not even make a joke of its own belatedness. I doubt the sisters read the newspaper. I know *they* don’t. Our parents don’t read at all.
Six-Word Memoir on NPR
Since I missed the live broadcast, I’ve been waiting all damn day for NPR to post today’s “Talk of the Nation,” and now they have! Today’s show features a segment with homegirl-in-chief Rachel Fershleiser and guy-I’ve-met-a-couple-times-who-seems-cool-too Larry Smith, who are talking about their massively successful series of Six-Word Memoir books, the newest of which is It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs from Writers Famous and Obscure. These books have become so big and so ubiquitous over the past few years that I think it’s easy to forget what a coup their success represents–the project was developed on the indie webzine Smithmag.net, and even after getting picked up by Harper Perennial (disclosure: also my publisher, blah blah blah) thrived in large part due to Fershleiser’s and Smith’s tireless hands-on DIY ethos, their willingness to throw countless events all across the country, and their ability to stimulate the continued interest, support and attention of thousands of contributors. None of which are remotely easy things to do once, much less over and over. So a hearty cheers to Rachel and Larry, and to the many NPR listeners who called in from all over the country during the segment to share their own six-word memoirs, especially Shelby the lunch lady from Lacrosse, Wisconsin: “The hairnet. Now we are equal.”
Bob Dylan Kids Book Forthcoming in September
Read the full story here, though I’ve already told you everything you need to know. Here’s the worst cover of the book-inspiring song that I could find.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBzQnJXnIEw
Ice Sun Wind
…a cold, blue light enters the window I feel enveloped in sap, or as if a clot of sap but also down the throat, into the lungs, sludging along tributaries, cold sap, and I was going to write–jacked on Coffee3–but now I will write little.
How does the weather affect your work?
An anecdote: One year Norman Mailer decided to winter in Provincetown. While this locale is famous for authors and their doings (and undoings), most everyone agrees you do not purposely winter in the region. Mailer knew this, but wanted to be alone, to focus on a novel. He got no writing done. Why? As he put it, in a bit of word-play: “You must watch your drinking.” He then explained that he found himself miserable, unproductive, and eventually reduced to sitting in front of a tall mirror, pouring bourbon into a glass, and staring into his face–In a phrase: watching his drinking.
Monday Lunch Hour Triple Play
How long has it been? Okay, how about now?
This is for all you poor mofos with dayjobs.
Nicolle Elizabeth is on top of The Rumpus today, with a piece of hard-hitting, uterine-deforming, Uwe Boll-referencing nonfiction entitled “I am the Unicorn.” Damn right she is.
Eileen Myles is the newest Poet Off Poetry over at Coldfront. She’s talking about the great Gram Parsons, specifically Archives Vol 1. I haven’t heard that release yet, but I count two Gram Parsons recordings–Safe at Home by his International Submarine Band, and Sweetheart of the Rodeo from him-era The Byrds–among the best musical discoveries I made in 2009. Huge, huge, huge. In the course of discussing Parsons, she also says quite a bit about the Everly Brothers, about whom, well–see previous sentence.
And finally, Jon Woodward’s Poems to Stare At comes with a hat-tip to a student of Matthew Rohrer’s I met at the Writers House on Friday at the Jonathan Lethem reading. Dude, I’m sorry I don’t remember your name but I really appreciate this link, and the stuff you said about Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy was also pretty dead effing on. Okay, the rest of you head over and start staring. Now here are the Everly Brothers to play us out-
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kooAgqCHGvU
Friday Night Lights (Group Effort #2 and Rule of Threes)
Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights
1. It’s Friday night. Remember when that meant something? We’d get dressed up in our tutus and paint little pink circles on our cheeks and pirouette the night away. Our thirties are different, are dark around the edges, are full of tennis matches and distracting tv shows that we don’t even watch on televisions anymore. Speaking of we, I remember loving The Virgin Suicides, particularly for Eugenides’ use of that wily, sometimes achingly beautiful first person plural.
2. Friday Night Lights is actually a pretty good show.
3. Here’s another group effort prompt for those of you who also don’t leave the house many Friday nights, smoking your cigarettes and drinking your delicious quiet with a straw. Let’s write a story this time. Keep your contribution to a few sentences, por favor.
We are goober. We are brontosaurus. In the back of a car, we are dumb luck.
It is Friday: Go Right Ahead
It was also good for starting a campfire.
Suddenly life has become quite full of monoethic ninnies and nannies who address life solely as a problem to be solved.
Hangovers have all the charm of a rattlesnake cracking its jaws as it swallows a toad.
I simply loved the flavor and a tear formed when I poured it out in the sink after gazing at it for several hours.
It’s hard to determine pathology in a society where everything is pathological.
Naturally, there are special occasions.
The reason to moderate is to avoid having to quit, thus losing a pleasure that’s been with us forever.
By dawn eager flies had gathered.
“OH, I HAVE A NEW SHIRT”: NEW DAVID LYNCH PAINTINGS
David Lynch is excited about cardboard! He’s also “kind of interested in stories.” And he recently had an exhibition of his new paintings, which look pretty awesome. Check out the video (from the David Lynch Foundation) and see Hollywood folks like Laura Dern and Thomas Jane admiring them too, set the Flaming Lips music.