Greg Gerke is the author of THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH SVEN. His website is www.greggerke.com. He answered some questions I sent him, mostly about flash fiction, though some are about being a real life human being. Interview after break.
It Goes On Between People
It’s sometimes said that a great novel makes a less promising basis for a film than a novel which is merely good. I don’t think that adapting great novels presents any special problems which are not involved in adapting good novels or mediocre novels; except that you will be more heavily criticized if the film is bad, and you may be even if it’s good. I think almost any novel can be successfully adapted, provided it is not one whose aesthetic integrity is lost along with its length. For example, the kind of novel in which a great deal and variety of action is absolutely essential to the story, so that it loses much of it’s point when you subtract heavily from the number of events or their development.
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You might wonder, as a result of this, whether directing was anything more or less than a continuation of the writing. I think that is precisely what directing should be. It would follow, then, that a writer-director is really the perfect dramatic instrument; and the few examples we have where these two peculiar techniques have been properly mastered by one man have, I believer, produced the most consistently fine work.
The Unoriginal of Laurel
Uncategorized / 19 Comments
December 2nd, 2009 / 8:13 pm
December 2nd, 2009 / 8:13 pm
Blake Butler—
Wow: “Eclipse is a free on-line archive focusing on digital facsimiles of the most radical small-press writing from the last quarter century. Eclipse also publishes carefully selected new works of book-length conceptual unity.” They have books by Rae Armantrout, Charles Bernstein, Christian Bök, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Aram Saroyan, and countless others, all archived on their site for free download and perusal.
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I Like Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz A Lot: Part 3
I like Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz so much that every day this week, I’ll be posting excerpts from a really long interview between Cristin and I about writing, New York and her forthcoming book Everything is Everything which will be released in January 2010 by Write Bloody Press. In today’s excerpt, Cristin talks about poetic boundaries, nostalgia and penis-shaped poetry.
Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever
Having heard Justin read a few of the stories from here, and having read others in New York Tyrant, Canteen, and elsewhere, I can say that even if I weren’t friends with Justin, and a labelmate, I’d be pretty fucking excited about his forthcoming book, Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever. You don’t have to listen to me though, here’s Padgett Powell: “Mr. Taylor has perfect touch, to frightening effect, does not presume, has power, and promises us new things. There is a debt paid to Donald Barthelme… and a strange undertow of Philip Roth, which makes for a new literary beast.”
You can preorder it now. It’s under $10 on Amazon. Or you can go direct to the publisher. Yes. Excited.
Here’s Some Stuff That’s Out There
The Rumpus has an interview with Eileen Myles!
Ange Mlinko on Rilke at The Nation.
There’s a new issue of Mike Topp’s Stuyvesant Bee. (pdf download)
Here’s Tolstoy’s epilogue to The Kreutzer Sonata. I just read that story for the first time, and thought it was brilliant how vividly Tolstoy detailed the main character’s delusions, obsessions, and psychosis. Then I discovered that Tolstoy actually meant the story as a kind of polemic, and that his character’s deranged views were actually delivered in earnest, being more or less Tolstoy’s own. Sigh.
Slate’s got a new Robert Pinsky column, on Robert Herrick, Ben Jonson, and how they were complainers.
Also, here is a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time walkthru from IGN.com. A couple months ago I found an old Zelda cartridge and started playing a saved game I left unfinished 12 or 13 years ago. I have completed all the temples for adult Link (without the walkthru, btw) and am now trying to figure out which 2 of the 4 bottle quests I have already completed, and which still need doing, because I want to go into Ganon’s Castle fully prepared. Oh fuck, I also need ice arrows. Eesh.
Catherine Lacey—
Some British guy is saying Jesus came to England to “study” and build a church because ” little was known about his life before age 30.” Sure! Why not? I have a feeling this guy is some kind of reincarnation of Chaucer’s Pardoner, because little is known about the afterlife. More importantly, what degree would Jesus get? I’m thinking an MFA. Best attempt at His first submission to His poetry workshop wins my blessing and/or the bones of a dead pig saint.
Grammar Challenge!
Seemed like people enjoyed talking about the finer points of grammar and usage a month or so back, so I thought I’d provide a little morsel from a nonfiction workshop I took in college taught by someone who, among other accomplishments, was the most obsessively precise user of English I have ever and will ever encounter. I have, or, well, had, David Foster Wallace to thank for my own peevishness about mistakes in what he called S.W.E., or Standard Written English. So what follows is the complete text of a worksheet from his class. Whoever can come up with the most correct corrections will win something (currently taking prize suggestions/donations). I’ll post the answers once it seems as if nobody is trying anymore. Don’t worry if someone else posts their answers first; they may not be right! Not as easy as it may first look. All sentences have one crucial error in punctuation, usage, or grammar. Okay go! ANSWERS HERE when you’re ready. And HERE is an explanation of why he took the trouble to teach us these conventions.
183D
25 February 2004
IF NO ONE HAS YET TAUGHT YOU HOW TO AVOID OR REPAIR CLAUSES LIKE THE FOLLOWING, YOU SHOULD, IN MY OPINION, THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT SUING SOMEBODY, PERHAPS AS CO-PLAINTIFF WITH WHOEVER’S PAID YOUR TUITION
1. He and I hardly see one another.
2. I’d cringe at the naked vulnerability of his sentences left wandering around without periods and the ambiguity of his uncrossed “t”s.
3. My brother called to find out if I was over the flu yet.
4. I only spent six weeks in Napa.
5. In my own mind, I can understand why its implications may be somewhat threatening.
6. From whence had his new faith come?
7. Please spare me your arguments of why all religions are unfounded and contrived.
8. She didn’t seem to ever stop talking.
9. As the relationship progressed, I found her facial tic more and more aggravating.
10. The Book of Mormon gives an account of Christ’s ministry to the Nephites, which allegedly took place soon after Christ’s resurrection.