Hey, I think HTML Giant should do its own MFA program ranking. Suggestions for criteria? Biggest party MFA? Cutest instructors? Best team mascot? I’ll start a list!

Can I discern the whole premise of your story in the first sentence? Good, then I won’t have to read it.

Reup: an excellent 2002 interview with Ben Marcus at Powell’s.

Dave: Language is central to the novel, the lack of it or the forms it can take. And there’s such a blur between food and language, so much confusion between those two.

Marcus: It’s one of those deep concepts that drives me as a writer. It’s constantly coming out of me. I’m always stuffing cloth in a character’s mouth. I’m always trying to mythologize the mouth, to make language animated so you can see it coming out of people’s heads, destroying objects. It’s provocative to me to look at the body and what the body does as a force of nature. Take the attributes and turn the volume up on them just a tiny bit, or maybe spray them with some revealing jelly so you see a little more than what might be there. In the lie you’re telling there might be some little parable, some revelation of what is real.

I feel so drawn to those notions and metaphors that I feel I can’t write about them any more. It takes three sentences for me before I start writing about cloth. It’s like a fingerprint. So I’ve set a rule for myself that the next book can have no wind, no references to weather, no cloth.

Orhan Pamuk has made a whole museum in Istanbul to accompany his latest novel, The Museum of Innocence. Coupons for entry can be found in the book. Pretty cool slide show of exhibits (and article) from NYT Magazine.

Keith Montesano is featured over at Anti-

Click thru to the Bookslut blog to read Jessa’s full post.

Even now when The Death of Culture is discussed, the definition of “culture” has to be watched. Only certain types of books and publications are counted as “reading,” according to those studies on the downfall of reading. Not that there isn’t a real issue going on — I am quite aware that everyone is in survival mode. Bookslut is kept going now on a month to month basis due to advertising issues and the like. For the first time in my life I have had to think thoughts about the “weakness of the dollar.” But the reason I have a hard time with these conversations about the decline of the review, and the death of authority, is because so many of the contemporary authors I love are often the ones being kept out of the conversation. They’re rarely, if ever, reviewed in the New York Times, they don’t get splashy features written about them and their night out with their friends. It’s hard for me to get worked up about the decline of reviews when I didn’t care much for them to begin with.

Today I believe Bernhard. Who do you believe

Gigantic has posted a Halloween web special which, among other things, includes a conversation with Brian Evenson regarding horror films and his work.

2009/10/29 at 12:28pm   i feel offended by this, this seems wrong and counter-productive
2009/10/29 at 12:38pm   man this post is so dumb, i am so done with this site
2009/10/29 at 12:41pm   i hate all of you i am never coming back here again
2009/10/29 at 12:43pm   what does this mean? you are such a douchebag i can’t even believe it
2009/10/29 at 12:55pm   i saw her read one time, it was OK, i was kind of bored, i like her book it’s OK
2009/10/30 at 2:38pm     lol
2009/10/30 at 2:38pm     this is stupid, boring
2009/10/31 at 8:38am     i am never coming back here again
2009/10/31 at 9:38am     this is dumb, why are all of you so dumb

so Roithamer.