BookLyfe, or Compendium #1
Millions crushed underneath.
Hello everyone. Pappy Blake Butler has allowed me to talk out loud a bit, and for that I am grateful. I hope to not bug the hell out of everyone here at HTMLG.
I’ve gleaned a lot of booktalk from the internet in the past week or so, and I’ll present it here, all at once. To start: Over at the Vroman’s Bookstore blog, Patrick Brown discusses the National Book Critics Circle’s recommended reading list. Patrick says:
…their recommended list leaves a bit to be desired. It’s not that the books on the list aren’t good — they are — it’s that they’re, well, a little obvious. My friend Cory, blogger at Skylight Books in LA, pointed out that Philip Roth made the list. Looking at the fiction list, I feel a little like Jack Black’s character in High Fidelity, “Philip Roth? Not obvious. No, not obvious at all. Come on, NBCC, couldn’t you make it easier? What about Hemingway? How about William Shakespeare? Why not recommend Hamlet?” I don’t mean to hammer on Philip Roth, who I love, but come on. Does he really need the readers?
Maybe the only thing college is good for these days
Yes. I speak of March Madness, which started about twenty minutes ago. Take a break from all the hand-wringing, keyboard headbutting and stylistic nose-picking. It’s a yearly dose of last-minute heroics and jingoistic chaos that is otherwise missing from our collective Calvinist nightmare, and I for one plan on ignoring work to ride the Golden Gopher.
And just to make this a book post, check out this recent reissued gem. It’s about the 1979 Portland Trailblazers, and it will gut punch your life. Also: I heard Blake can dunk.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SELLING-OUT
what is your definition of selling out in the context of writing?
also: watch this.
it’s really funny.
Today at Coop’s place: a post about wrecking your couch (also, Bookforum)
So I thought it was long past time we checked in with Dennis Cooper’s blog, and it just so happens that today there’s a guest-post by Steven Trull, who is also something of a somewhat regular reader/commenter on this blog. Trull presents “The Kill Your Couch for No Reason Post.” As you’ll notice when you get over there, the title is preceded by “Steven Trull presents (part one)” which seems to me to suggest that there will be more Trull posts coming, possibly on topics unrelated to couch-killing. But for now: COUCH-KILLING. Click on over and watch the YouTube-culled videos of couches being burnt, run over with a station wagon, and otherwise KILLED.
So that’s all well and good, but else has been going on at Coop’s?
Well yesterday we looked at Notable Male Escorts of the World for March 2009
And the day before that was a Varioso Day (#18), which contains–among other things–an animated adaptation of James Tate’s poem “The Search for Lost Lives.”
And this picture of a Tom Friedman piece:
And a link to this Mary Gaitskill interview in the new Bookforum. It’s a short interview, but a good one, and it contains the possibly news-to-you that MG has a new collection out (it was news to me). So once I had clicked over there I got to browsing, and have the following further Bookforum recommended readings: William T. Vollmann on the ethics of photography, David Gates reviews the new Antonya Nelson, David Haglund reviews Andrew Porter, Mark Sarvas on John Haskell, and Wendy Lesser takes on both the O’Connor bio AND the Library of America Collected O’Connor.
Terms I am tired of Hearing
Having been around writers more than usual lately, I’ve found myself disgruntled with some of the jargon and stylizing that comes up: not necessarily as a matter of pretension, but more as habits.
I’m the kind of guy that can’t stand to sit in a movie next to the dude eating popcorn with his mouth open. Gum chewing really nicks my nerves.
In that mind, here are 4 writing-related speech manners that seem all over the place and really crank my crank.
A Little Friday Inspiration
“Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.”
Now let’s get out there and write some fiction or poetry, people.
Mr. Quickly: The Greatest Amazon Reviewer of all Time
Once, when I was desperately trying not to work on a novel, I spent a great deal of time on Amazon reading fake reviews. I discovered Mr. Quickly. I contacted him, asking him to work with me on a book of a collection of Amazon Reviews to be entitled, Fake Amazon Reviews. It would be a little “gift” book, something you pick up on your way out of the bookstore, a little slip of a book, right near the checkout. I think I insulted him by assuming his reviews were “fake”. Sigh. Mr. Quickly, if you are out there? I love you. Here are some of his great reviews:
Poe sorry for his drinking. Butler, not.
Here:
“Will you be so kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behaviour while in N-York?,” Poe asks New York publishers J. and Henry G. Langley. “You must have conceived a queer idea of me — but the simple truth is that Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying.”
Compare, contrast to this in the comments.
Best compare/contrast wins a prize. Or two. I have lots of galleys and am cleaning house. Prize packages tailored to the tastes of the winner.
UPDATE:
Apologies for vagueness. In the comments, write a short essay (Oh, even just a paragraph long) comparing and contrasting Poe’s apology for his drunken behavior in New York to the video of our fearless leader screeching drunkenly about smoothies when he visited New York a couple of years ago. The video is linked to the word “this” because I was unable to embed it.
My New Favorite Blog
Is Cake Wrecks the Literary Rejections on Display of food blogs?
Butler takes Greenpoint: a photo diary
WHAT: Blake Butler, Gary Lutz & Robert Lopez read at WORD Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Thursday, 3/5/09.
Sorry, I didn’t get pictures of the other two. I don’t think Gary likes to have his picture taken, actually, and I didn’t want to spook Robert by shooting with a flash without warning first. As you can see, I didn’t give a damn about spooking Blake. He’s staying on my couch while he’s in town. Camera with flash is the least of his worries.
AFTER THE READING WE WENT TO THE PENCIL FACTORY