Ken Sparling’s The Serial Library: Overview and Interview
[Guest Post: Greg Gerke]
Ken Sparling is a writer. He works in a library in Toronto. He has written six novels. His latest is Intention, Implication, Wind from Pedlar Press. His first, Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall, published by Knopf in 1996 will be reissued by Mud Luscious Press in August.
Ken Baumann—
Over at BOMBLOG, a deep interview with one of the best & bravest: Jarret Kobek. Conversation includes: ATTA, Disneyland, fiction/fact, youngwriterfear, culture bends.
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Street-Side, Bedside, Broadside: An Interview With Shannon Cain
The Necessity of Certain Behaviors
by Shannon Cain
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011
160 pages / $24.95 Buy from Amazon
Stories in Shannon Cain’s The Necessity of Certain Behaviors pair exhibitionist events and their three-ring tableaus with characters who typify “marginal,” yet who nonetheless surprisingly assert not only their outsider status, often in correlation with their sexualities, but also their complexities—a young lesbian ventures to the set of The Price is Right to meet her father, Bob Barker, only to find not parental but sexual identities challenged; a mayor’s wife endures the scandalizing of her sexuality after she is caught masturbating in the YMCA’s shower room, only to find that her new relegation to sexual deviant has allowed her singular insight into victims of the myriad sexual minefields in her community—the cumulative effect of these stories also achieves a reversal: common notions of taboo or freakishness gain warmth and humanity, while the normative culture unveils its crippling deformities. Cultural critique couldn’t have a more compelling and sophisticated face. In an era often favoring equivocation as a substitute for vision, this collection is clear: take a stand, make it compassionate. Others agree, of interest to note: American Literary Review, American Short Fiction, Colorado Review, Massachusetts Review, Southwards, Tin House, The O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes, the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
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January 20th, 2012 / 12:00 pm
January 20th, 2012 / 12:00 pm
Ken Baumann—
Anybody who’s remotely interested in the art of/work of writing should pick up the current issue of The Paris Review and flip to Dennis Cooper’s interview. It is pure inspiration.
Enter The Void: OUT TOMORROW
In theaters tomorrow and On Demand on the 29th. Don’t miss this film. Some more whet:
-Steve Erickson interviews Noé: “I saw “Lady in the Lake” on mushrooms and became fascinated with the idea of depicting a character‘s perspective while he’s on hallucinogenic drugs. I also read about astral projection, and the afterlife. I don’t believe in it, but as a collective dream, like flying saucers, I wanted to depict it properly.” and “I want to make a movie that will be very sentimental and sexual. I have a long treatment now. It’s a love story. I want to film sex as I’ve experienced it, which I haven’t seen accurately represented in erotic or pornographic films.”
I was the one who was called to make it: an interview with Luca Dipierro
Luca makes films, makes paintings, makes stories. He recently moved from New York to North Carolina, where he has become a visual artist full time. We talk about this recent decision, the relationship of art & commerce, art as work, and what is beautiful/not pure.
KB: So, what I’m immediately curious about is your thought process before you moved to North Carolina and decided to make art your primary business. Was there a definite moment in which you decided this?
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May 26th, 2010 / 9:00 am
May 26th, 2010 / 9:00 am
10 Part David Foster Wallace Interview 2003
[Parts 2-10 available from the end of part 1. Thanks Gene Kwak]
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL HANEKE
apparently not a Haneke self-portrait
So I interviewed Michael Haneke about his new film The White Ribbon, which just opened in the United States and won the Palme D’Or at Cannes last May. You know Haneke, I think: Cache, Funny Games, The Piano Teacher, Code: Unknown, Benny’s Video… yes, you know Michael Haneke. Perhaps you even agree with me that he’s one of the world’s greatest living directors.
jolly!
We did the interview in a hotel in midtown Manhattan. He was slender and well-dressed with a beard the color of Malamute fur. As others have observed, he’s disarmingly pleasant in person—even jolly. If he weren’t so thin, he could be Santa Claus.
Even if you’re prepared for it, it’s remarkable to note first-hand how the cruelty, despair, humiliation and horror of his films have no counterpart in his demeanor. Actually, more than anything, he seems professorial.
Our Q & A is below. I’ve condensed some of my questions and remarks to streamline/clarify, and so you don’t have to read as much from me, but I’ve preserved just about every word Haneke said, intelligibility of the tape allowing. His English is fairly good, but unless otherwise noted, he’s speaking through a translator.
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Nick Antosca: Are you afraid to die?
Interview with John Dermot Woods
I’m pretty sure John Dermot Woods hasn’t killed any presidents, but he still opts to use his assassin name on the cover of his book, The Complete Collection of People, Places & Things (BlazeVOX 2009).
That’s a title worth remembering, but I don’t blame anyone who can’t do it. I always call it The Complete List of Stuff, even though John’s title is better. I like how he places no limit on what is included. Apparently, it is the complete collection of everything and everyone, everywhere, ever. READ MORE >
Happy Sunday
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November 15th, 2009 / 9:52 pm
November 15th, 2009 / 9:52 pm
The Appalling Volume of Artifacts
WSJ: Does this issue of length apply to books, too? Is a 1,000-page book somehow too much?
CM: For modern readers, yeah. People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you’re going to write something like “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Moby-Dick,” go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.
The Interview Awards: Rivka Galchen
Interviews with novelists seem to always run the risk of being completely inane. (So…. how’d you come up with the plot of your book? Your protagonist is craa-aazy! How ’bout that? ) A lot of interviews have the same confused, polite tone. If you haven’t read the book they’re talking about then the interview might not make any sense but if you have read it, the interview might be boring. Either that or the writer ends up just talking about their “process” (3 hours every day, only after midnight, in the bathtub… blahblahblah…) which can be interesting sometimes but is often dull.
Somehow, though, I like reading these interviews despite having a lot to complain about. Rivka Galchen gives particularly good ones so I’ve decided to give her three highly arbitrary HTMLgiant awards based on one interview in The L Magazine.
Best alternative to just saying “Um, No.”:
The L: The omnipresent character Tzvi Gal-Chen is named after your father. Is there significance behind the names of any of the other characters?
RG: If you take all the letters of the names of the different characters, shuffle them, then transpose their value an X increment, it reveals the terrifying and silent name of the God of our divine disorder.
READ MORE >
A LONG-ASS INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS HIGGS
chris higgs was nice enough to do an interview with me at my request. here is the interview. it is long.
(interview after break)
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June 14th, 2009 / 5:39 pm
June 14th, 2009 / 5:39 pm
HEY YOU, STOP THINKING ABOUT THE BEST WAY TO WORD SOME LAME SHITTALK AND READ THIS FUN INTERVIEW!
yo yo yo everybody! how’s everyone doing! sweet, just trying to look less insecure by arguing on the internet!? aw yeah! well, here’s another random interview. david peak emailed me after i posted about doing interviews. we finna be democratic! keep emailing me and i will keep interviewing. (INTERVIEW AFTER BREAK Y’ALL!+BONUS HEIDEGGER REFERENCE!)
WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BASH RAUAN KLASSNIK’S HEAD INTO PULP: AN INTERVIEW ABOUT RAUAN KLASSNIK
hello. i wrote something recently about liking interviews. after i wrote that rauan klassnik emailed me and asked about being interviewed. i interviewed him and here it is. also, he has a new book on the internet at this place:
http://rauanklassnikringing.com/
(interview after break)
David Lynch, annoyed
From the New York Times Magazine
I completely envy and despise Deborah Solomon, who does the one-page interviews with influential people in the New York Times Magazine (I know, I know, it’s far from an Independent press; bear with me.) She interviewed David Lynch (ah, there’s the Independent spirit) this week and I loved to see how much he hated her interviewing style. His first answer was an insult to her question, but then again, her question was an ignorant insult to his work. Do you really think he wants someone to watch Blue Velvet on their iPod? I mean, have you seen anything he’s made? Click here to read the interview in full.
“I hear you’re getting married again.
In February. I’m marrying a girl named Emily Stofle.
Is she an actress? Was she in any of your films?
She was just in one, “Inland Empire.”
You’ve been married three times before?
Yeah, it’s real great.
Why would someone who feels so generally blissed out marry so many times?
Well, we live in the field of relativity. Things change.”
