Types of novel: Cult, or coterie, novels
April and Frank's trip to Paris
Kate Winslet won an Oscar for The Reader, but Richard Yates fans everywhere thought to themselves, I’m just going to pretend she won this for her portrayal of an American housewife instead of an illiterate fräulein.
So, the movie wasn’t exactly fantastic. You, and every other literature major undergrad, film critic over the age of 45 (new yorker review cough cough) were willing to forgive the movie for it’s, shall we say, defects. Obviously you could look past the “limitations of the medium” because Yates finally got the recognition he deserved! This is obviously a year of triumph for underdogs. Obama is president, Kate Winslet WINS an Oscar, Richard Yates’ magnum opus is turned into a film and nominated for three Academy Awards. Woo, hoo!
This recognition is not without its drawbacks, and clearly you wouldn’t be a Yates fan if you didn’t get all hot and bothered by life’s bittersweet moments. In the aftermath of a booze soaked celebration you awake a little less certain about the cultural capital of your precious dog-eared copy of Revolutionary Road.
It’s not long before your shadowy unease grows to proportions of nightmarish beast. Shortly after you mom visits you for the weekend and steals your beloved 12th edition paperback, the horrific truth dawns on you; the cult classic value of your blue chip investment has plummeted, you are now culturally bankrupt.
Controversy at Helix!!!!! And the Invention of Transcriptase!
I'm singing "Controversy" right now in my kitchen.
Opium’s Network of Writers Experiment
The “Opium’s Network of Writers Experiment” is seeking quotes about writing one writer passes along to another. The latter writer is to submit the quote to Opium. (I don’t think either writer needs to be ‘famous,’ though I may be wrong.)
The Lost Generation had Paris, we have the internet. Short of any idealistic ‘organic’ ‘philosophizing over absinthe’ process, I think it would be most effective to streamline this son of a bitch by posting a comment about writing – as an open submission of sorts – for anyone to pick-off and relay to Opium if they wish. The deadline is March 3.
So, two things will be done: 1) leave a comment about writing (with full-name as you wish to be cited), and/or 2) pick a quote you like and submit it to Opium.
Here are examples provided by Opium (which seem a little stuffy and pedantic to me, so let’s show those kids how it’s really done):
“Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. Write around 700 words a day and then stop.” –Mieke Eerkens was told by Vikram Chandra.
“You shouldn’t write a novel unless you have an idea for one.” –Jamey Genna was told by Lewis Buzbee.
Submit appropriated quotes here: opiumwritersexperiment@gmail.com
In narcissistic delight, here’s my quote, if any of you want:
“No double-spaces or cramps after the period.”
God damn I’m subtle.
CANTEEN magazine announces poetry & fiction contests; new issue
Read the post, and all will be explained.
I met the good people of Canteen Magazine during the last NYC LitCrawl, and they were swell. At the time, they had just put out issue #3, which featured words by Porochista Khakpour, Ben Kunkel, Dana Goodyear, Shellie Zacharia, and Lee Klein, just to name a few. You can see thumbnails of the covers on the Canteen website, but they don’t really convey the full story. Canteen is a 9 x 9 full-color magazine printed on heavy-stock paper. It’s filled with art and photography as well as literature. (My favorite thing in #3 was “Returning Thing,” a portfolio of photographs by Martin van de Griendt, from his book Smokin’ Boys Smokin’ Girls, which anyone who wants to should feel free to buy for me.)
Anyway, I just got an email from the Canteen folks, which mentioned among other things, the imminent release of issue #4 (which I have a story in- so full disclosure, or whatever), that they’re going to have a booth at the Armory Show (an NYC art gathering that runs from 3/4-3/7), and this thing about the contest, which is what I thought YOU PEOPLE might want to know about-
Win Sam Pink’s book, I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT!!!!
Htmlgiant and Paper Hero Press are sponsoring a contest to win Sam Pink’s I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT!!!!!!! We are giving away THREE COPIES to the best entries! Here is the contest, people: Give us your best description of a fight that made you physically ill in 50 words or less. Enter in the comments section,(you can enter more than once and you can make shit up). Barry Graham, the publisher of Paper Hero Press, Sam Pink himself, and yours truly are the judges. Barf vomit blood and tears people. We love you.
Sam contemplates death, bones, violence and blood often in his book. That said, here’s a quote from the book that isn’t like that:
When You Are Happy Do A Handstand
When you are happy do a handstand and step into the sky. Go knee-deep. And push your feet through the depths. Start thinking about where the bottom is and what it feels like and if you’re not too stupid or scared to touch it.
(Full disclosure: I offered to cuddle naked with Sam Pink at the AWP in Chicago a week or so ago (even though I wasn’t there), but he declined. Then, it turned out it wasn’t Sam Pink. It was Mary Gaitskill.I was wicked drunk.)
“The Lover” by Damon Galgut, from The Paris Review (Winter 2008)
Damon Galgut
(Full disclosure: Once, I was at a party and got really drunk and offered to have intimate relations with Damon. He turned me down. Then, it turned out that he was not Damon Galgut, but Sam Pink. Go figure.)
I love the long short story. I like short ones, too, but I think the length of 7000 words and up may be my favorite length. “The Lover” by Damon Galgut in the Paris Review is 38 pages long. My guess is that it is approximately 10,ooo words. Galgut is the South African author of The Good Doctor, (very Graham Greenish, but with a flatter style) an accolade garnering novel I enjoyed so much I went onto Alibris and looked up his earlier work, work hard to find here at the time. I couldn’t get through a very harsh and violent book, Small Circle of Beings (I’m a pussy) and still have not picked up The Quarry, but I have enjoyed coming across his short stories in journals, (especially one that was in Zoetrope a few years ago.) “The Lover ” is classic Galgut, channelling a post-modern distance more Handke than DFW. His narrator, “Damon”, switches from primarily third person narration, to moments of first person narration. Galgut’s switching back and forth felt random to me at first, but with patience, a pattern and reason emerge. READ MORE >
Our Beloved 26th
The last few years have seen two very good novels about office life, Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End and Ed Park’s Personal Days. (Also, one very good British television program and one occasionally very good, David Foster Wallace-admiring American knock-off television program have appeared, too.)
If you have felt that all of those things have been lacking in a thick coat of misanthropy and violence—besides the thick coat of misanthropy and violence that some see as inherent to capitalism in the first place—Future Tense Publishing has just released a little chapbook called Our Beloved 26th that should satisfy your desires quite nicely.
I saw Kevin Sampsell yesterday*, and he handed me a copy of the book, and told me the author, Riley Michael Parker, is quiet and shy and young. Apparently—happily, really—the young man has some issues.
Uncategorized / 15 Comments
February 25th, 2009 / 6:01 pm
February 25th, 2009 / 6:01 pm
‘Steve Reich Hears a Pentecostal Preacher’ by Adam Robinson, from ‘Adam Robison’
It’s not quite available for the masses yet, but to get you hype for the forthcoming release of Adam Robinson‘s debut book of poems, pleasantly titled ‘Adam Robison and Other Poems’ (and forthcoming in the next few months from Narrow House Press) we’ve got two special treats lined up.
The first is said book’s publisher’s new blog: Narrow House press blog, which is a pleasant introduction to the group and their releases, which span from records to full length poetry books.
Secondly, culled from what might be quite a length of dirty video recordings captured this weekend at the post-510 Reading Series bar assault (in which your current blogger and said ‘Adam Robison’ aka ‘Magic Acorn’ were asked to ‘stop wrestling in the bar or leave’), is Adam Robinson’s fine drunken performance of his poem ‘Steve Reich Hears a Pentecostal Preacher.’
Please enjoy (and thanks to Michael Kimball for the sweet capture).
You should have seen him breakdancing a few minutes later. It was a poem in itself. Though the guys at the pizza shop were less thrilled with Adam and some other weird dude screaming about dick and pouring water on each other in a beer haze. Poem video life.
Also, for your consumption, the brilliant introduction to ‘Adam Robison,’ published here at Otoliths, which contains the paragraph:
So what’s the story, Anne Carson? I mean, what’s my story? I’m riding my bike home with a video camera strapped to the handlebars, through the glittering downtown into the crumbling neighborhoods of Baltimore’s east side.
I, for one, am quite excited.
“Everybody is pink.” An Excerpt from The Journals of John Cheever
God bless Blake for putting up with the likes of me. He truly celebrates diversity of tastes and temperments with letting me be a contributor. I love Cheever. I might love his journals as much as his short fiction. (I like his novels a bit less). Here’s an excerpt, a random one, from near the end of his life, when the world starts changing so fast on us, it dizzies us. I often think about aging and dying and how chaos and destruction eventually win our bodies whole. (Thanks Mom and Dad.) This excerpt is one of many strange and heartbreaking sections from his journals that show his delight in language and confusion as to what our time here actually means: READ MORE >