Justin Taylor is the author of the story collection Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever, and the novel The Gospel of Anarchy. He is the editor of The Apocalypse Reader, Come Back Donald Barthelme, and co-editor (with Eva Talmadge) of The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide. With Jeremy Schmall he makes The Agriculture Reader, a limited-edition arts annual. He lives in Brooklyn.
Do you know Tolstoy’s “Three Hermits”? You should.
A Joshua Cohen double-shot– Reviewing Gilbert Sorrentino’s The Abyss of Human Illusion for Bookforum; and at Tablet:
And now it’s Rumpus Double-up Interview Sex Time- for Recession Sex Workers #8, Stephen Elliott interviews Antonia Crane; and Steve Almond interviews his former student Jason Mulgrew.
This Santa Fe Institute economist claims that 1 in 4 Americans is employed guarding the wealth of the rich.
Joanna Scott on J.M. Coetzee at The Nation, because hey why not?
And now, in what I’m more or less convinced will be officially known as NYTea Time: Will Blythe likes Bolano’s Monsieur Pain; Joel Brouwer goes high-low on the new Tony Hoagland; Geoff Dyer is unimpressed by the new DeLillo (this seems to be the general trend of opinion, but I still want to see for myself; also, in the opening lines of the review, Dyer sketches his view of the best and worst DeLillo; to the extent that my two favorite DeLillo books (Mao II and Cosmopolis) are the ones he thinks are the worst, may be safe to say our tastes may diverge); Deborah Solomon talks to Douglas Coupland about Vancouver; and Francine du Plessix Gray on the new Amy Bloom collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. She likes it quite a bit–no surprise there. I’ve never heard a cross word said about Amy Bloom, who seems to be one of the highest-regarded contemporary writers I’ve never quite gotten around to reading. There’s a copy of her book Come to Me that I can see on my shelf from where I’m sitting. Tell me friends, is it high time?
NYC Area Alert: The launch party for LIT #17 (the journal of the New School graduate writing program) is tonight at Housing Works bookstore & cafe. Sasha Fletcher, Phillip Gardner, Anne Ray, and the inimitable Jennifer L. Knox will be rendering their readerly services. The facebook page claims that space is limited and so you need to RSVP if you’re going, but my bet is that if you show up, they’ll figure out a way to get you in. I am very excited about this and planning to attend, so think about your desire to hear these readers, weigh it against your desire to potentially interact with me, and plan your evening accordingly.
Stephen Burt reviews Mark Bibbins’s The Dance of No Hard Feelings at Coldfront. He gives the book 8.5 out of 10 stars, and declares the poet “inescapably sexy”–this pretty much sums it up, but probably you should read the whole review.
Found this blog recently, via can’t remember what. It showcases what purport to be genuine letters from notable cultural persons. They offer a copy of each letter as well as a typed transcription. Letters of Note.
Ever since Jeremy Schmall turned me on to John Gallaher’s blog, my feelings about poetryland have been just a little bit brighter.
Last week I went to see Jonathan Lethem read from Chronic City at NYU. The reading was enjoyable, but the real standout for me was the Q&A, which I found especially powerful. JL talks with Darin Strauss about influence, composition, struggling to get that first book done, and the responsibility you feel to re-issued books that you write the introductions for. (Lethem recently prefaced Nathaniel West’s Miss Lonelyhearts / Day of the Locust for New Directions; first time that book’s ever had an introduction.) Anyway, while you’re over at the NYU page, you might want to check out some of their other recent podcasts- Lydia Davis, Forrest Gander, Colum McCann with Padgett Powell, which in fact I’m going to enjoy with my breakfast right now. The main page for the series is here.
Last but hardly least, I’m going to make a semi-concerted effort from now on to illustrate these posts with the work of visual artists I admire, instead of just random shit I Googled for. So pleased for you to meet J.L. Schnabel, an old friend of mine and a fantastic artist and writer and jewelrymaker. She blogs here, and writes for the more-SFW-than-it-sounds art website Fecal Face. Her most recent piece is a studio visit with John John Jesse.
Since I missed the live broadcast, I’ve been waiting all damn day for NPR to post today’s “Talk of the Nation,” and now they have! Today’s show features a segment with homegirl-in-chief Rachel Fershleiser and guy-I’ve-met-a-couple-times-who-seems-cool-too Larry Smith, who are talking about their massively successful series of Six-Word Memoir books, the newest of which is It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs from Writers Famous and Obscure. These books have become so big and so ubiquitous over the past few years that I think it’s easy to forget what a coup their success represents–the project was developed on the indie webzine Smithmag.net, and even after getting picked up by Harper Perennial (disclosure: also my publisher, blah blah blah) thrived in large part due to Fershleiser’s and Smith’s tireless hands-on DIY ethos, their willingness to throw countless events all across the country, and their ability to stimulate the continued interest, support and attention of thousands of contributors. None of which are remotely easy things to do once, much less over and over. So a hearty cheers to Rachel and Larry, and to the many NPR listeners who called in from all over the country during the segment to share their own six-word memoirs, especially Shelby the lunch lady from Lacrosse, Wisconsin: “The hairnet. Now we are equal.”
Read the full story here, though I’ve already told you everything you need to know. Here’s the worst cover of the book-inspiring song that I could find.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBzQnJXnIEw
How long has it been? Okay, how about now?
This is for all you poor mofos with dayjobs.
Nicolle Elizabeth is on top of The Rumpus today, with a piece of hard-hitting, uterine-deforming, Uwe Boll-referencing nonfiction entitled “I am the Unicorn.” Damn right she is.
Eileen Myles is the newest Poet Off Poetry over at Coldfront. She’s talking about the great Gram Parsons, specifically Archives Vol 1. I haven’t heard that release yet, but I count two Gram Parsons recordings–Safe at Home by his International Submarine Band, and Sweetheart of the Rodeo from him-era The Byrds–among the best musical discoveries I made in 2009. Huge, huge, huge. In the course of discussing Parsons, she also says quite a bit about the Everly Brothers, about whom, well–see previous sentence.
And finally, Jon Woodward’s Poems to Stare At comes with a hat-tip to a student of Matthew Rohrer’s I met at the Writers House on Friday at the Jonathan Lethem reading. Dude, I’m sorry I don’t remember your name but I really appreciate this link, and the stuff you said about Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy was also pretty dead effing on. Okay, the rest of you head over and start staring. Now here are the Everly Brothers to play us out-
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kooAgqCHGvU
Elisa Gabbert begins her blog post, “Publish the Poem, Not the Poet” with the following anecdote-
Going through Absent subs lately, I’ve been reading a lot of poems that feel basically perfunctory. They are perfectly competent poems written by poets who have every indication of being good writers: I recognize their names and the places that they’ve been published; their credentials are impressive; often I’m already pretty familiar with their work. (Everyone submits to and gets published in the same online journals, for the most part.) But the poems are merely competent; they have no [oomph/je ne sais quoi/duende/poetry]. It’s like the poet wrote them just because you gotta write something. These writers are probably capable of turning out a “publishable” poem any day of the week.
The post is worth reading in full. Also interesting is the comments section, where there’s a lively thread going. It seems, for the most part, that people are in agreement with her, some of them quite vocally so. Personally, I felt my own agreement-strings tugged hard at the out-set, but then the upwelling of a consensus so perfectly in line with my own made me distrust my own first instinct. If we’re all in such fine agreement on what the problem is (that is, the problem of “competence,” as outlined above; later EG introduces and “image vs. idea” argument with a highly tentative relationship to the ostensible initial concern of the post) then why has the problem not resolved itself by dint of our own collectively adjusted behaviors? Is there anyone out there who knowingly practices the poetry of mere competence, or sufficiency? Is there a describable (defensible) logic or ethos informing such practice? I would love to hear from that person or those people. Also, does anyone want to make the argument FOR publishing the poet rather than the poem? I actually think there’s a strong, albeit difficult argument to be made for this practice, though not necessarily as it applies to the mid-rangers and “competents” EG is talking about. DISCUSS!
Gawker.tv has clips of Oprah audience members doing group process after Jay Leno’s visit to O’s show. WARNING: Watching this has basically ruined/made my day. It has sent me into paroxysms of stupidity, which are kind of like hate-sex orgasms, only they come out kind of sideways, and share certain fundamental attributes with the concept of “negative infinity.” No Harold Bloom for at least an hour after Oprah audience share-time, or you will cramp up and drown like a swimmer with a gutfull of Chinese food. Also, what is negative infinity, exactly? Dr. Achilles at the Math Forum, take it away-
>I would also like a real world example of negative infinity that I
>can use to explain it to my daughter.Regarding this question, I don’t think I can help because I am at a loss to come up with an example of negative numbers or of positive infinity which would work for a 4-year-old (and I can’t even come up with an example of negative infinity for anyone, offhand.
Best wishes for you and your child in working through tough math concepts.
Oh, well. It was worth a try.
The Scott Timberg io9 piece I mentioned the other day is live now. “Welcome to the Soft Apocalypse.”
At TNRBook, Sophia Lear is unimpressed by Sheila Kohler’s Becoming Jane Eyre. Also, reprinted classics by George Orwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Two things I pinched from Bookslut– “The Poetics of Amateur Products Reviews” and Margaret Drabble introduces you to William Wordsworth. And why the heck not?
Okay, NYTea time- Tom Carson really likes Just Kids, Patti Smith’s memoir of Robert Mapplethorpe. I’ve heard amazing things about it as well–out in “the streets”. Wells Tower is pretty ambivalent about the new T.C. Boyle. Antonya Nelson calls Robert Stone’s Fun With Problems “a book for grown-ups,” which is a concept I both do and do not understand; both am and am not vaguely attracted to. Has anyone out there ever read any Stone? Also, obituaries. Charles McGrath on Salinger and Michael Powell on Zinn. A blog I’d never heard of (before Paper Cuts linked to it) called “Classics Rock: Books Shelved in Songs” has playlists of songs that reference the works of each man (Zinn, Salinger). But the Farah Fawcett Memorial Overshadowed Death of the Week (literature edition) has absolutely got to go to poor Louis Auchincloss, who wrote over 60 books over 50 years, mostly while also still practicing law, and who, at 92, had a year on Salinger and four on Zinn.
Finally, a question. For three days now I’ve left Emerson’s Divinity School Address in an open tab on my browser. Will today be the day I print it out and actually read it? (That’s really two questions.)
Quote of the day (see above; also left) belongs to Amanda F. Palmer, alumna of The Dresden Dolls, fiance of Neil Gaiman, and friend of The Rumpus (who have almost certainly already linked this, so even though I found it on my own let’s assume a HAT TIP to them; if nothing else they had AFP play one of their fundraisers and she was great). Anyway, AFP went to the Golden Globes because NG’s film Coraline was nominated for something. Her debrief on this experience is about a thousand pages long and worth every minute of your time–pissed off security guys! playing dead on the red carpet! Mike Tyson! armpit hair!
Jason Diamond interviews Gary Shteyngart for Jewcy.com.
The Nation has Rebecca Solnit on how the media exacerbates the problems faced by survivors of disasters by the way in which it covers them–particularly in referring to scroungers food and supplies as “looters.” “Covering Haiti: When the Media is the Disaster.”
Felicia Sullivan blogs an elegy for Salinger that I think speaks for itself.
Matt Taibbi is still a badass. David Brooks thinks economic populism is like racism against rich people. Michael Steele wishes! Everyone else just thinks DB is a giant flaming dick. Anyway, here’s Taibbi-
And the really funny thing about Brooks’s take on populists… I mean, I’m a member of the same Yuppie upper class that Brooks belongs to. I can’t speak for the other “populists” that Brooks might be referring to, but in my case for sure, my attitude toward the likes of Lloyd Blankfein and Hank Paulson has nothing to do with class anger.
I don’t hate these guys because they’re rich and went to fancy private schools. Hell, I’m rich and went to a fancy private school. I look at these people as my cultural peers and what angers me about them is that, with many coming from backgrounds similar to mine, these guys chose to go into a life of crime and did so in a way that is going to fuck things up for everyone, rich and poor, for a generation.
Their decision to rig the markets for their own benefit is going to cause other countries to completely lose confidence in the American economy, it will impact the dollar, and ultimately will make all of us involuntary debtors to whichever state we end up having to borrow from to bail these crimes out.