Macondo Madness!

2011-04-30T18:28:00.001-06:00

In Laura Miller's Defense

2010-11-03T23:02:00.000-06:00

Earlier this week, Laura Miller, one of the head writers at Salon.com (which is a great Web site), wrote a piece actively speaking out against National Novel Writing Month. This inspired some anger by contributers. Carolyn Kellogg, another critic whose opinion I respect, posted up a response on the LA Times blog, Jacket Copy (my second favorite book blog, right after The New Yorker's The Book Bench). The comments are filled with even more anger and derision directed toward Miller.

Now, I don't agree with Miller's main argument, but I do think she's right in the fact that too many aspiring writers don't think they actually need to bother reading anything. My main argument: she totally went the wrong way of approaching this issue. The following is a response I posted in the comments section. It's narcissistic, sure, to post it twice.

One: in reply to an earlier poster, Miller's "Magician's Book" is very much not an anti-Chronicles of Narnia book. It's a book about how the things you read generally shift in their meaning and importance as you grow older. She loved them, then felt betrayed, then came to appreciate them for something that she never realized were a part of the story.

Two: Generally speaking, Miller's recommendations of books are frequently spot-on. Her interests are broad and its appreciable that she's been one of the many professional proponents of the not labeling genre. (Among her book club choices for this year: "The Passage" and "Freedom." One of her best reviews: Gary Shytengart's "Super Sad True Love Story.") She's less prejudiced and more open toward a story than Michiko Kakutani and B. R. Myers and James Wood, who escape general ire because they consider themselves so high brow.

Three: In her article, Miller explicitly stated that she has no desire to be a novelist. This criticism launched against her must have come from the same place the birthers pull their theories.

Four: O.K., she has an argument, and it's not untrue that a great deal of people who are working on a novel don't bother to actually read anything in their free time (or at any time at all) apart from social mediated status updates, but in this piece in particular she does not deliver it well at all, and it's probably unfair to use National Novel Writing Month as her launchpad. She kind of goes all over the place and makes these oft-mentioned negative generalizations.

I was an English major; I'm going to be an English major again, and when I went to school I was all stoked that I would be surrounded by people who read a lot of books and had all these ideas and recommendations and everything. Turns out, I was the one who read all the books and had all the recommendations, all these other English majors were either aspiring teachers (which is an even larger problem, considering more than a few of them did not believe Gregor Samson turned into a vermin, but felt like one for the whole narrative, and I could go on) or just thought they would receive an easy degree. We were given DeLillo's "Libra" -- a novel that demands patience and rereading -- and hardly anyone liked it because it wasn't immediate and RIGHT THERE. When DFW died, hardly anyone in any of my classes seemed to care. Pynchon wasn't a recognized name. Miller's pieces often helped steer me in some direction, toward something in a line of inspired reading.

I think Miller's criticism is mis-directed in her article, and you can feel her trying to assemble the disjointed, disproportionate pieces together to form her cohesive whole (which, of course, leaves many gaping holes that we're having so much fun pointing out). National Novel Writing Month and its participants aren't deserving of her ire. Still: she's among the strongest critics writing right now (especially w/r/t those on the Internet) and any activist of reading, even with the occasional misstep, as this one so very very evidently is, is someone still worth listening too.

ALSO: a few months ago, when The Guardian put out a list of a bunch of writers given writerly advice, Miller contributed a list of elements that readers enjoy. You'd think it'd be self-evident, some of the things she points out, but there are still plenty of aspiring writers who claim they don't have the time to read but still think they'll produce something great. Read that instead of this one. http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/02/23/readers_advice_to_writers

TV Shows

2010-06-17T09:15:00.002-06:00

Pick your five favorite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don’t cheat!

1. Pushing Daisies
2. 30 Rock
3. Avatar: The Last Airbender
4. The Simpsons
5. Mad Men

Who’s your favorite character in 2?
Liz Lemon. That poor girl who's just trying to find love. Yeah, I know it's a cheat to heart the main character, but whatever.

Who’s your least favorite character in 1?
Chuck. She doesn't do a whole lot but complain and whine. I agree with Emerson Cod about her most of the time.

What’s your favorite episode of 4?
Tough but I liked the parody of Cape Fear (titled Cape Feare) quite a lot.

What’s your favorite season of 5?
The third. The season finale was like the best episode of that show ever. EVER.

How long have you watched 1?
From the day it premiered to long past its abrupt and inhumane cancellation.

How did you become interested in 3?
Kept hearing about it, seeing toys of Aang, etc. popping up everywhere, reruns on Nickelodean, saw that there was a movie coming out, saw that the first season was streaming on Netflix, and then just got carried away. Now I don't wanna see the movie for fear that it'll taint the TV show.

Who’s your favorite actor in 4?
Either Dan Castellenta or Hank Azaria. They do the most characters, so . . . .

Which show do you prefer? 1, 2, or 5?
Number one. Pushing Daisies is my favorite TV show of all time. ALL TIME.

Which show have you seen more episodes of; 1 or 3?
Three, just because there are more episodes altogether. But I've watched the episodes in one a lot more.

If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?
Lisa Simpson.

Give a random quote from 1.
"Well just because it was ajar doesn’t mean it wasn’t a door before it was a jar which would indicate to most people to a-knock before a-entering."

Would a 3/4 crossover work?
Probably not. Although they're both animated, their universes are so radically different. I'm sure four would parody three at some point or another, however.

Pair two characters in 1 that would make an unlikely, but strangely okay couple.
No, because it wouldn't work at all. In its brief run, Fuller paired up a whole lot of characters, even to the point of making them all awkward and ponderous, so no. Or just Olive Snook with any of the guys other than Ned.

Has 5 inspired you in any way?
To smoke more.

Overall, which show has a better cast? 3 or 5?
Probably five, just because Mad Men is live action and everyone is seriously seriously invested, and in Avatar, they were invested in different ways.

Which has better theme music, 2 or 4?
Four, obviously. The Simpsons theme is a classic.

Best of the NBAs

2009-09-21T13:24:00.003-06:00

No, not that silly basketball stuff, but the National Book Awards. In a similar vein to what the Booker did awhile back (of which Midnight's Children was the winner -- twice), the National Book Award Foundation are asking what you think is the best book with the NBA.

So go here: http://www.nationalbook.org/nbafictionpoll.html

Look through the five nominees. And pick one.

I suggest Gravity's Rainbow. If you haven't read any of them, just pick Gravity's Rainbow. It's the best of the bunch. Easily. There's more going on in it than any short story collection. I mean, within the first hundred pages, there's a mad scientist who gets his foot caught in a toilet while chasing a dog through London ruins. The first hundred pages. There's also sex slaves, giant octopi, monstrous aenids, dream-jumping, sympathetic lightbulbs, and a multi-volume study of King Kong. How does that not warrant attention?

Besides, at the time of this posting, Flannery O'Conner's story collection is leading the races and come on. Flannery O'Conner? Even over John Cheever? Or William Faulkner? Not that I've read a whole lot of her, but really she just seems so . . . determined to be literary and depressing and dark and is that what American letters is really about?

Vote Pynchon!

John Krasinski Made a Movie

2009-09-19T18:44:00.004-06:00

Not only did John Krasinksi make a movie, but he also took the premise from a ridicuously difficult source material. Right now in select theaters, you can see Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, the film adaptation of the David Foster Wallace story collection. Signed off with Wallace's approval (and even apparently graceful acknowledgment that Krasinski was so able to tie the different stories together), it looks as bleak, dark, depressing, and all around hilarious as the short story collection, which you haven't read, it's worth trying. Like most story collections, not all the pieces are spectacular and you do get some clunkers, but hardly any of that comes from the hideous men segments (though "Octet" is still hauntingly amazing and achingly discomforting). Is it a good way to indoctrinate yourself to Wallace's work? Sure, why not? It was the first David Foster Wallace book that I ever read, though that's not to say you cannot be ambitious and just go for Infinite Jest or anything.

From interviews I've seen with Krasinski, he seems like a genuinley nice, warm-hearted guy, not to mention remarkably intelligent. Which makes you wonder why he did something like Liscence to Wed, unless he was liscenced for a paycheck, boo-yah. I know he's a great admirer of Wallace's work, which all right is not an ultimate qualification for intelligence, but . . . . Anyway, you can kinda tell that he's put his all into the production of this thing and it does indeed look captivating.

Here are some Hulu videos regarding the film:

I'm not entirely sure how it was recieved at Sundance, but I think it was taken fairly well and hey, why not bring it to more attention? Another interesting note: apparently after the film has had it's small theatrical run, Hulu will be streaming it on their Web site for some time. So it sounds like it might get a bigger audience.

Oh and check this out. You can read one of the brief interviews (which isn't actually so brief and you better get comfortable because this is probably the most compelling of them, the most involved, hideous, and heartbreaking, the closer of the collection [almost] and winner of a prize in fact) over here at The Paris Review. Or buy the book.

P.S. In the behind the scenes video above, what did you think of Christopher Meloni name dropping Mamet and Neil LeButte in his interview (for the Interviews; how postmodern)? Was it honest and that was where his mind went, or could it have been more of a "I know you see me as the muscle on Law & Order and one of the prisoners in Oz, but I'm smart, too, see? See?"

A Book Review

2009-09-16T23:16:00.002-06:00

All right, so we're all well aware now that the new Dan Brown book was released like yesterday. I was at the bookstore earlier and there were seriously enough copies of that book that it was able to support a table, filled with more Dan Brown-ish type stuff. The first print run is something like five million copies and the publishing industry is putting a lot of faith and hope into this, as if Dan Brown can be the savior of the book business, which is unlikely and silly and sad. But I'm willing to bet that the book itself is just a reiteration of that last, big famous one, which, okay, was kind of fun when reading it but afterward was like, "That was the dumbest thing I've ever experienced!"

Still, there are plenty o people out there on the ball and the one-star Amazon reviews are cropping up. Normally one-star reviews on Amazon are silly, whining people who either didn't get the book and didn't want to get it, are simply out to troll and declare that they are like the little boy who revealed the emperor's new clothes (such a worthless piece of criticism and a major indicator that they have no idea what they're talking about), want to make a scene, or just bring attention to themselves -- a lot of these contribute to being one in the same thing, but that's irrelevant. Occasionally you get some honest criticsm, some carefully thought out and well-stated observations about why a work didn't work with a person, but that's about the same as finding someone who Twitters using correct grammar, or one of the few people now online or in general who knows that the word "all right" is never a singular word (i.e. 'alright' [sic]), but I stumbled upon this one for The Lost Symbol -- whose original title was The Solomon Key, which I think is a lot better -- that I thought I'd like to share with you. It's a blast. And see if you can crack it's own little code!

Three years ago, Dan Brown and top executives in Hollywood and the
publishing world assembled Thomas Harris, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, Paulo
Coelho, Jimmy Wales, Abir Taha, and Rhonda Byrne in one room and said:
"Hello and welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight you are being tasked with creating a novel of epic proportions - one that will keep multitudes of airline travelers
mildly entertained for a few hours while simultaneously insulting the intelligence of anyone who possesses anything higher than a Bachelor's Degree in Communications. Gripping intrigue; explosive revelations; multi-dimensional, original and sympathetic characters; realistic, cutting-edge technology; finely crafted and astonishing plot twists; meticulously researched detail - this book will have none of these! Instead, randomly tear some pages out of your own manuscripts, staple them together and have the product on my desk by Tuesday night; we need at least a week to whittle down your blathering drivel into a 120 minute screenplay.
"I'll be on the phone with Hanks' agent negotiating a deal where we send him a blank check, and he reciprocates his end of the contract by laconically intoning his dialogue while stumbling about in a tweed jacket, so just slide whatever you come up with under my door. Remember, it's got to be at least 450 pages - if it doesn't snap the strap of a Timbuk2 messenger bag, it's not literature!
"Someone needs to throw in at least three dozen references to "things people do on the internet" too, please. You know, just try to work in the words 'iPhone,' 'Twitter,' BlackBerry,' and 'Google' every ten pages, that way readers will know it's a taut techno-thriller. And set it in Washington DC. Yeah, like National Treasure 2. People liked that, didn't they? Jimmy, have your boys just print out everything they have on the Freemasons, George Washington and Isaac Newton. Yeah, I know we used him before; we honestly don't know any other scientists. What do you mean your editors don't actually fact-check their information? So it's all just a hodgepodge of hearsay and conjecture? Actually, that's perfect.
"So, yeah, we have to have a love interest, too. And by love interest I mean "woman with whom the protagonist has no chemistry whatsoever." I don't know, a beautiful, wealthy, impossibly intelligent woman who not only is involved in ground-breaking research in a scientific field that doesn't technically exist (but is going to change Everything Forever!) but also somehow gains the ability to make incredible leaps in logic minutes before our protagonist, thereby completely undermining the purpose of his entire character. Which reminds me - we're going to need a villain, too. Has there ever been a 6' tall, rich, muscular, bald, psychotic antagonist with giant tattoos who kidnaps his victims for the purposes of his own "transformation"? What's that, Tom, you don't think so? Good - run with that. Throw in a plot twist about him too. Something that's never been done before. And how about some minor characters as well - an impeccably dressed black man who has keys that open every single door
in Washington, an old blind priest who speaks solely in riddles, and oh, what the hell, a deformed, female chain-smoking Japanese midget with a gravelly voice. Yup, all in the same book.
"Um, ok folks, I think we're done here - Oh, right, thanks Rhonda, I almost forgot - the ending! People have been waiting years for Dan's newest, colossal secret! One that will be sure to rock the very foundations of every society on our planet, destroy centuries-old beliefs and shatter ideologies into powdered glass! Here it is - get ready - The Bible. Reading the Bible will teach you things. Things that every single human being alive already knows, but they don't know they know. But once these things are pointed out, people are going to feel incredibly stupid that they didn't see them before. But they're also going feel uplifted because they now know that they're one with God. Or they're the same as God. Or they made up God. Or they're made of God. It doesn't matter. Just mention "God" and "hope" and people will get all choked up. Abir, you have some experience here - just make it sound spiritual, inspiring, and wishy-washy all at the same time.
"Can you also make sure to bury this Bible in some well-known, but highly implausible location that certainly won't be figured out in the first 20 pages by anyone more observant than a small, retarded child? I don't know, Dean, somewhere in Washington - but it's gotta have a pyramid on top. Yeah, a pyramid, like at the Louvre. Dan likes pyramids, ok? Are there any places like that in Washington? Anything vaguely pyramid-shaped? Just Google it, you'll find something. And make sure a shadowy government agency first tries to stop our protagonist, then ends up helping him using sophisticated technology that couldn't possibly do the things the book says it can do. Just make something up - like time traveling thermal cameras or
something. Or how about that liquid breathing fluid stuff from The Abyss? That's got blockbuster written all over it. No, Michael, we're not actually going to mention The Abyss in the book - that would be utterly ridiculous.
"Koontz? You had another question? Yes, of course - I was just getting to that. Every single chapter should end in a mini-cliffhanger that doesn't actually advance the plot, but instead leaves the readers completely unsatisfied, forcing them to stay awake for another two hours in order to reveal some insignificant and unlikely plot point. Typically, each chapter should end with one character literally pointing out something to another character, but never telling the audience what it is they are pointing at until the reader has consumed at least 30 more pages. Needless to say, the thing they are pointing at should leave both characters either "shocked," "incredulous," or "amazed."
"Everyone knows what to do? Great. All right guys, let's get cracking. Paulo, if you could stay behind for a minute; we found 87 more languages to translate your repetitive, mindless pedantry into. The rest of you, thanks for coming, please pick up your cartons of money on the way out..." Done. Congratulations; you've just read The Lost Symbol. I just saved you $17.00 and six hours. No need to thank me. And if you're still interested in ciphers, riddles and secret messages, I've embedded my own within this review - a diabolical code that I spent as much time crafting as Brown did on this steaming pile of pulp.

--Valannin "Pantheon Outcast"

These Are Pretty Cool...

2009-09-01T13:46:00.004-06:00

Just watch. Hardly any commentary necessary.

Salutatious Dinosaurs

2009-09-01T10:20:00.001-06:00

I'm of the Opinion...

2009-08-24T08:08:00.001-06:00

...that there should be a lot more videos like this.

You know what would be fun? Making a movie in this type of puppetry style. We should get on it. You and I.

Let's Read a Story

2009-08-17T21:44:00.002-06:00

This week, the New Yorker posted an excerpt from the other upcoming Dave Eggers book, The Wild Things, which, you guessed it, is loosely based off of Where the Wild Things Are, taking in both the screenplay for the upcoming film, that I'm very excited for, and Maurice Sendak's original book, which if I become a professor sometime in the future I'm totally going to throw on the curriculum.

It's titled "Max at Sea" and really . . . speculations are vague. I haven't had a chance to read through it yet but I'm going to in a moment, I promise.

Since I'm sure there's a whole lot of copyright issues going forth, I'm just going to post a link to the page. And who doesn't want to hang around the New Yorker website anyway? So much to do!

All right, read here.

Oh Yes, It Gets Even Better....

2009-08-07T15:27:00.002-06:00

By which I mean the new trailer for Where the Wild Things Are. WATCH.

One Fantastic Photo

2009-08-06T16:21:00.002-06:00

This came from an article in the Guardian regarding an exhibition about a photographer whose latest project involves people reading. This one is my favorite one, though there's another with an older man stooped outside a New York book rack that's also so...wonderful. This one, however, is simply captivating. To see the rest head you can go to: http://www.gu ardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/jul/23/andre-kertesz-on-reading-exhibition?picture=350678882

Infinte Summer

2009-07-09T21:23:00.003-06:00

Most people hadn't heard of David Foster Wallace until his sad sad death last fall. Like the departure of Michael Jackson the attention that went toward him helped garner interest, so perhaps it's because of that that the a group of readers decided to form Infinte Summer. Not only does Infinite Summer (do you italicize the names of websites or put those things in quotes?) offer a sort of memorial for readers who were fans of the man's work, but it also provides incentive, a group therapy reading session, if you will, to get through DFW's masssive tome (yes, that extra 's' is necessary), Infinte Jest.

Like a lot of other people I picked up my first copy of that book a couple years back, I think my sophomore year in college. I found the ten dollar tenth anniversary edition online and asked my friend, Nate, to buy it for me, with the promise to pay him back (I don't think I ever actually gave him that ten bucks, so thanks bud!). For the next few years it sat on my bookshelf, adding to the weight that sagged down the wood panels or whatever they were placed on. Other DFW books started to appear around it, including Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, both of which I read before his death, so I can claim to the uber-pretentious claim of discovering him before he recieved more attention (though let's be honest: anyone who pays attention to anything that's going on in the literary world, even with half a head turned, would know the name David Foster Wallace: Chuck Klosterman is a pale imitation; Mark Z. Danielewski swiped his excessive footnote use and while House of Leaves may seem fun the first time you've read it, after you discover other things you realize how silly it really is, apart from a few geniunely good moments) but I still never managed to get past page 10.

Actually my most gallant effort came over the Christmas holidays where I made it a whopping 130 pages into the tome (including like 5 pages of footnotes) before giving up.

Anyway, the people at Infinte Summer had proposed that we all read along, perhaps even participate in some discussion, the massive novel Infinite Jest, which is 1000 pages long plus 100 pages of endnotes -- which are very important to the story and if you think you can skip, you better think again. They plan to read 75 pages a week and already are in week three, but that's all right if you're just jumping aboard now because lots of people, if you pay attention to their constant lines of updates, are behind in the quota.

Me being me, I finished the book earlier this week and it did take me longer to read than a lot of other things. It's really a piece that demands your patience and attention. It asks you to make as many connections as David Foster Wallace plans to reveal. And it might be one of the saddest things you'll ever encounter, though the relentless depression is offset by the fanatic hysterics, giving you this amazing balance of emotions, which is a part of what fiction should do. The first 200-250 pages are the most difficult to get through, and DFW gets a little excessive in what he's trying to do, as if calling more attention to prose acrobatics and multi-paged paragraphs than giving us progression. Until page 500, things start getting more interesting and you're laughing and wincing and squirming and still finding bits of the excessivness, the overabundance that DFW probably was saying mirrored the events of the book but there's still a point. From 500 to the end, with only a few scenes that could have been reduced a bit, the book is breathtaking and exhilerating. Truly magnificent, I kid you not.

But this isn't a book report, is it? Or even a critical evaluation/review. I just wanted to tell you about this website.

It's a thing well worth your time and if you're the type of person who needs structure and communion to get through something huge, then it might be perfect for you. Or if you're just interested in seeing the different effects literature can have on different people, read a variety of opinions and interpretations and usually fairly well-thoughtout and reasoned explications, then check it out.

CLICK HERE.

In a Perfect World

2009-05-31T21:01:00.003-06:00

In a perfect world, the new Dan Brown novel would be sliding under the radar: no one would be able to find it, no one but the most serious consipracy theorists would at all be interested in it, and it would be published by some crummy print-on-demand company that would cheaply bind it and overprice it. The fact that Dan Brown can become so popular is a kind of sad, and the reason I say kind of is because while Dan Brown simply exists in a realm of mediocrity or horridness (choose whichever one you think would be the worst), he is bringing people into bookstores -- despite the fact that the books, like the Twilight series, do nothing to make people think about anything apart from or inside the narrative.

The point is: the new John Crowley was released last Thursday and I have yet to see a single bookstore in Colorado Springs carry a copy. Even the indie bound ones, although being indie bound doesn't necessarily mean that a bookstore is going to stock an item. Let's take into consideration the trouble I had finding John Wray's Lowboy, which is very good and I think that you should read it. I looked everywhere, all the indie outlets first, but they were stocking about the equivalent, in terms of new releases, of what is stocked at Walmart or Kmart or Target (the chain department store I like). Finally I found and bought a copy at Barnes & Noble and did I feel guilty? No. But then again you have to take into consideration that this is Colorado Springs we're talking about, a city that's not exactly the pinnacle of culture or thought. The same thing kind of happened with Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned but I eventually decided not to buy a copy of that book and just check it out from the library (I actually did hold a copy today, not from a downtown bookseller, but again from Barnes & Noble).

All right all right, Barnes & Noble isn't exactly the best place in the world either. What happened was this: I preordered the new John Crowley, Four Freedoms, from the store expecting, as with all preorders, that it would arrive on the day it was released. Most times I've preordered, books have come early, which is nice. I figured that with Memorial Day weekend and everything, my book might be a little delayed, but it's almost a week later and there has still been no word on its arrival. I called a store and they said, "Oh yeah, it should be here in 3 to 8 business days." Don't you think that totally defeats the purpose of a preorder? Which is making me frustrated because I've been looking forward to this book for some time already and there's this hindrance.

Also, in a perfect world, no one would stop and record over the first new episode of Pushing Daisies in months for some stupid basketball game. I'm going to find that person and punch them in the eyeball. Several times. Despite the fact that they could probably turn around and beat me up without a problem. Still. It's the principal of the matter. Now I gotta go to the ABC Web site and fight through all the download this download that junk to finish this episode, which was going so good and was a great reminder of what made this TV show such a wonder in the first place (although I hear that it went virutally unwatched: this, however, could be part of ABC's plan to validate their decision to 86 it: I still hope that ABC goes totally under -- once Lost is taken off the air). I missed Ned so badly.

The New Wilco

2009-05-14T16:51:00.002-06:00

Follow the link to listen to the brand new Wilco album, which ups the label of eponymous by being titled Wilco (the Album). I am not making this up.

I think with this new record, Wilco, as a whole, are doing a lot to show that they don't take themselves as seriously as some might think. Have you seen the album cover? It's like Lawrence of Arabia displaced but happy. Yet, on this first listen, the music is still fantastic. I love Jeff Tweedy. As a group, Wilco are probably the best American musical act out there right now. Not to say that there aren't any other good ones, but man oh man are Wilco awesome.

Pushing Daisies News

2009-04-16T22:47:00.003-06:00

First and foremost, Amazon has listed that the season two DVD of the greatest TV show in recent memory is slated for a July 21st release date. That might seem so far off to find out what happens in the last three episodes of the series, but you know what? We Daisies fans have been waiting so long to see these (apart from those who were actually at the Paley Festival) that another three months -- or less if you count from today -- aren't even that terrible to think about.

Secondly, io9 and Sci Fi Wire -- things I don't normally read and only accessed when I typed Pushing Daisies into Google News Search -- are also reporting that the comic book series, which will serve really as the third season of the show, might be dropping before 2009 is over (take that recession). Fuller, apparently, has pulled in most of his writing staff and hired an artist that I've never even heard of, which honestly isn't a fair assessment because most comic book artists have had to won Pulitzers (Art Spiegelman) or drawn album covers (Craig Thompson) or written other novels (Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore) for them to hit my cultural radar. The online comics ABC had up before ABC went all stupid were entertaining enough and I think with the same devotion that Fuller has always shown, these will be fine. The only thing lacking: the wonderful performances of the cast. Chi McBride, for one, is too good for a great majority of the work that he recieves (Let's Go to Prison? I, Robot?).

Anyway, here are some key quotes:

I am going to pull together the Pushing Daisies writing staff. It will be run
like a writer's room, where I will write the first story, and we will arc out
the other issues, which will comprise what we were going to do in the back nine.
We'll also make it accessible for those who are not familiar with the TV series,
as well as introducing villains we couldn't do on ABC. There is a villain from
the Comic-Con preview comic about a guy who got his head cut off. Ned touched it
to get some answers; the body came alive too and proceeded to grab his head and
get away. We definitely want Head to come back as a big villain.

Is the comic book considered season 2.5, then?
Fuller: In many respects, it's probably season three. We're going to see a lot of exploration with Ned and his father, which we teased but were never able to make good on. We had George Hamilton save Ned and Chuck, and by having Emerson and Dwight Dixon clean up the whole mess we're going to understand who Dwight was to Chuck and Ned's dad. Dwight will be making a return, and we'll be seeing the adult Eugene Mulchandani and Danny that involves helium smuggling. There's a lot of fun stuff woven into the series that we were intending to pay off that we can now do in the comic-book series. The fans of the show will see a lot of stuff come to fruition, but new fans will have a greater appreciation, too. Since it's Marvel, I would also love for the Pie Maker to touch Captain America.

Also, some speculation about the cancellation:

The writers' strike is the big bully to blame for the plummeting ratings. There was a writers' strike in 1988, and television shows lost around 30 percent of their audiences. During this one, shows lost 20 percent of their audiences. It was a combination of the writers' strike and being off the air for 10 months.

The other problem was our timeslot wasn't good, since we didn't have a lead-in. When we aired at 9 p.m., we went up by 3 million viewers, which was really dramatic. ABC refused to move us from the 8:00 timeslot, which had worked previously the season before, but after the writers' strike and the erosion of the audience, it wasn't sustainable, so we asked them to move us repeatedly. We would have even taken Friday night at 9 p.m., because people don't watch TV earlier. All the Nielsen ratings indicate people start watching TV at 8:30. That was a big indication, but I certainly don't think the quality of the show went down. If anything, it got stronger and clearer.

Oh, if you're reading the articles, be wary because there's a lot of stuff being spoiled.

The New John Crowley Book

2009-04-12T21:36:00.002-06:00

On May 26th, John Crowley is publishing his 11th book, Four Freedoms, which seems to be more in line with The Translater and The Evening Land: Lord Byron's Novel than it does with Little, Big. Or maybe it is a conflation of everything, that undefinable thing that makes John Crowley John Crowley (check out the Aegypt cycle). Regardless of that, it's another book that I want to read and the second-most that I'm anticipating.

Sorry Professor Crowley, but a new Thomas Pynchon book is a new Thomas Pynchon book....

WHOA....

2009-03-25T17:44:00.002-06:00

This is all over the blogosphere, I'm sure, but goddammit, Warner Bros. just put up the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are and it looks...amazing. Click here for the hi-def Apple.com trailer, or just watch the YouTube thing, which who knows how long it'll last?

A Book I Want to Read

2009-03-18T09:02:00.006-06:00

I haven't actually read anything by John Wray quite yet -- he only has two books out thus far: The Right Hand of Sleep and Canaan's Tongue -- though I have been meaning to and there have been times I've been at the library and had copies of either of those under my arms, which were shoved out of the way for some other thing eventually, but his newest novel sounds incredible. Starred review from Publisher's Weekly, the top of the list of Amazon's best of March '09.... Here are some reviews, reprinted without permission or MLA format:

I'm not the first and certainly won't be the last reader to herald Lowboy
for the subtle homage it pays to one of the best-known
heroes in 20th century fiction, or to envy and delight in its masterful
vision of New York City as seen from its darkest, most primal places. What's
most seductive for me about John Wray's third novel--and arguably the one that
puts him squarely on the map alongside contemporary luminaries like Joseph
O'Neill, Jonathan Lethem, and Junot Diaz--is how skillfully it maps the mind's
mysterious terrain. This isn't exactly uncharted land: John Wray's Will
Heller--a.k.a. Lowboy--is a paranoid schizophrenic who, certain of both his own
dysfunction and of the world's imminent collapse by way of global warming, could
easily remind you of Ken Kesey, but Wray handles that subtext delicately and is
careful to make Will's mission to "cool down" and save the world feel
single-minded without being moralistic. Wray invokes all the classic elements of
a mystery in the telling, and that's what makes this novel such a searing read.
As Will rides the subway in pursuit of a final solution to the crisis at hand,
we meet (among others) Will's mother Violet, an Austrian by birth with an
inscrutable intensity that gives the story a decidedly noir feel; Ali Lateef,
the unflappable detective investigating Will's disappearance whose touch of
brilliance always seems in danger of being snuffed out; and Emily Wallace, the
young woman at the heart of Will's tragic odyssey. The novel moves seamlessly
between Will's fits and starts below ground and Violet and Ali's equally
staccato investigation of each other above. This kind of pacing is the stuff we
crave (and we think you will, too)--the kind that draws you in so unawares that
before you know it, it's past midnight and you're down to the last page.

Atop that, I found, via YouTube, a great reading, very blogotheque or whatever that is, where John Wray reads his book on the actual subway (it was apparently written there, too; a romantic guesture, I presume).

I also like the further premise of this video:

Remission

2009-03-15T09:13:00.002-06:00

So I'm back in Colorado Springs for Spring Break (the ultimate travel spot; I mean, seriously, I pity all of you who went to Chicago or Mexico or San Francisco or France, because Colorado Springs is where it's at, baby) and suddenly have gone through a couple remissions. Recently I suffered through one remission when in a week I watched the entire 30 Rock series, which, because Pushing Daisies has been cancelled, is now the best show on television. Funny, smart, rounded characters (I have a friend who tried to argue with me, saying that I was looking at them on the surface levels, and blah blah blah; yet this is a kid who thinks Family Guy is funny and entertaining and is a biology major and reads Ways of the Peaceful Warrior, so it's really difficult to judge anything he says about characters and stories and effective storytelling seriously), great cast, and just spectacular joke after joke. That was all fixed up with last Thursday's episode.

You know, lately I've noticed that I've been watching a lot more TV, yet I don't actually watch it on my television set, but more on the Internet. Hulu.com is a wonderful Web site, and I seriously found the original Addams Family sitcom from the 60s -- all 64 episodes. Movies are just sort of flying back and I'll watch one occasionally, though I haven't seen anything in theaters since Coraline, which if you haven't seen, I'm very very sorry, and I don't think there's really anything interesting coming out till . . . all right, I'll be honest and admit that I do want to see that new Star Trek, which looks like it'll be a boatload of fun. The Boat that Rocked looks like the right kinds of goofy too, though is it difficult to do a radio movie? I haven't seen Talk to Me yet, but I wanted to. I haven't actually attempted a radio based story quite yet, bizarre considering I work at a radio station. Anyway, I refuse to see Watchmen because I hate both the comic and Zack Snyder, and God knows if anything good was released this week. Scorsese has a movie coming out at the end of this year; that new Michael Mann film looks interesting; and yes yes I'll admit it, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince looks fairly wicked awesome. Seeing as we got detracted from the original point, I'll sum it up at this: at the moment I'd rather watch a season or series of a good TV program (and I am picky when it comes to TV, moreso than movies or books or music) than a single movie.

Another story: I watched the very first Star Wars last weekend, you know, the one from 1977 (though it was the special edition because that's what I have on DVD; honestly, outside of some of the obvious fakeness, it doens't really bother me) and, let me start off by saying that I really enjoy those movies, that though none of the Warss match the heights of the Indiana Jones pictures (especially w/r/t Raiders of the Lost Ark), they're really a lot of fun. But that first one (Episode IV or whatever), dammit, is such a handjob to Joesph Campbell! There was a lot more exposition in that thing than I initially remembered. They don't even leave Tatooine until an hour into the movie, and the picture's only like two hours long. And there's still a lot of talking and plot to get through! Regardless, I like those movies and Han Solo, again a more flattened less badass version of Indiana Jones, is, spell it out, a.w.e.s.o.m.e.

All right. There's this nice break from KCSU, though I do like getting new music. Benjy Ferree released a concept record called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee, which traces the lift of one Bobby Driscoll, who you might know from giving the voice of Peter Pan and playing Jim in the original Disney Treasure Island. His story is the quintessential child star piece, the epitome of what happens and it goes: as a kid, Bobby Driscoll was given all the attention, actually taken under Walt Disney's wing and was living the life . . . until he hit puberty and his roles dropped off. He starred in a bunch of smaller, more adult (i.e. R-rated things, not pornography) pictures, dabbled in drugs, and in fact devoted most of his fortune to keeping up with the heroin. He ended up dead at 31, his body buried in a pauper's grave because some kids discovered his remains and they had no identification, and there's this legacy all about him. And there's the story for Benjy Ferree's record. "Fear" is a great song, looped in the doo-whop tradition and totally appropriate for what's going on.

The best release so far this year, however, I feel is still the Andrew Bird, which isn't even his best record, but still! Really, I'm holding out for the new Wilco, due out in June, and apparently (through the grapevine I've heard) returns more the the layered structures of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born rather than the jam band sessions of Sky Blue Sky, which was of course the followup (a decade later) to Being There. Wilco in any incarnation are the best band from America so I'm really excited.

Yesterday was the first day I had gone without any form of caffeine in some time -- no coffee or tea or anything -- and I had a headache by the end of the day. Today I had some and it feels wonderful. Like New York in the spring, or so I hear.

I want to share this with you before I go, it's a link through a blog that offers the a transcript of the brainstorming sessions that went into making Raiders of the Lost Ark. I guess if you're making something with somebody this might be the best way to start the writing a major sort of project. If I still wrote scripts and movies and stuff, this would be a lot more revelatory, but now it's just sort of interesting.

Story/fiction/prose writing is a lot more fun anyway. And you don't have to rely on anyone else other than yourself in order to get something done. And budgetary issues are never a problem. Of course, you get another batch of problems which at times have driven me super super crazy, but still, it's all on you to finish the drafts, before you show it to other people, and you don't have to worry about them, while reading the typescript, not showing up for the appropriate times or goofing off too much so production gets pushed behind and then trying to interject to do things that don't match the characters and blah blah blah. Egotistical and God-complexed? Sure. But I should admit that everytime I've finished a story, I've felt more accomplished than any movie.

One more thing: "Ojitos," a short story I wrote and which won me 1600 bucks through a competition has so far been rejected from three of the five magazines I've sent it to (Southwest Review, McSweeneys, and The New Yorker). I'm expecting another couple rejections in the next few weeks, but at least these editors know I exist and one of them did offer me to keep trying. Yay.

Summary

2009-03-02T20:36:00.003-07:00

It's no secret that I really really hate the Watchmen comic book. Jason Moses, a good friend, introduced it to me my freshmen year of college and I just didn't like it. Yes, I may be in the minority on this, but regardless. It left me cold, not in the sense that it was Moore's intentions to leave me cold, but that the story deteriorated in on itself, that it got lost within its own ambitions and couldn't find a way out so it pulled the fastest punch it could think of (though this ending was obvious, the clues toward it were sprinkled in later and sometimes felt out of place). The characters want to be rounded, but were flattened in their Technicolor conventions; Moore's desire of vengence and undergrad politcal sprouts overruled any real message that they had; and it just went on and on and on and on and on and on and on, seeming to glorify the fascisim contained within more than the actual questions of watching the watchmen or whatever.

As everyone knows, there's a movie coming out at like the end of this week, and the New Yorker put out a nice little review of it, featuring a passage that ultimatley describes my feelings toward the comic book:

“Watchmen,” like “V for Vendetta,” harbors ambitions of political satire, and,
to be fair, it should meet the needs of any leering nineteen-year-old who
believes that America is ruled by the military-industrial complex, and whose
deepest fear—deeper even than that of meeting a woman who requests intelligent
conversation—is that the Warren Commission may have been right all along. The
problem is that Snyder, following Moore, is so insanely aroused by the look of
vengeance, and by the stylized application of physical power, that the film ends
up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon.

For all I care, people can have their Watchmen, it seems to be the kind of story you love at a certain point unconditionally then outgrow (see: House of Leaves), but, come on, why read that when you have much fuller, much more impactful and important and wonderfully complete graphic novels and comic books like Maus and Blankets? In all, I still think that it's just a dreadful piece and hearing people talk about it incessently, freaking out about it as if it were to be the greatest thing this side of divinity, is getting old and silly.

Also at the New Yorker this week, a couple pieces about dear departed David Foster Wallace. There are plans, rumors brewing, that the segments and notes of his last, unfinished novel are going to be put out sometime next year, which is expected. I bet there's another short story collection in there too.

Last Night's Oscars

2009-02-23T10:24:00.002-07:00

Such a predictable show last night. I only tuned in for some parts and luckily saw the ones that I actually cared about. Of those, there were two pretty good speeches, both coming from the Milk wins.

Dustin Lance Black's was elegant and wonderful, not preachy but comforting and welcoming and just very well delivered. Watch here:

Sean Penn's was a little long on the graitudues at the beginning, but his postscripts were....

Frankly, I don't understand why there's still all this opposition; this hiding behind facades of church and religion; this overall fear of basically nothing. How long do you think it would take people to just get over it? To make them realize that everytime they throw out an attack, make their protesting statements, say their bigoted comments, they are putting themselves in a negative light? Making themselves come off as less intelligent and more wicked? Why do people need to feel this way, projecting their own frustrations and fears onto another group of people that has no true differences than them? How can these people possibly think that they're doing the right thing?

I don't understand it at all.

A Collection of Silly Love Songs

2009-02-09T18:58:00.002-07:00

Check it: NPR has a playlist (compiled from a variety of NPR member stations) of love songs. It's the February fever, which makes single boys like me all the more depressed and liable to write terrible love stories (or re-read the terrible ones I've written before -- who knows? I may post one at some time!), and read things like My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead, which is a fantastic collection and I recommend that you get it.

Anyway, there's some great songs here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100411956

Also, All Songs Considered focuses this week on little known love songs. I haven't listened to it yet, but I have it all synced up and ready, baby.

Obamatoric

2009-01-26T20:37:00.003-07:00

Sunday found The Guardian writing, I believe an op-ed piece (I could be wrong) about what makes Obama's speeches captivating, boiling it down to essentially that he knows how to tell a story.

You can read the article here (and you should, it's pretty good).

For instance:

Obama, like a good writer and a better politician, seems to understand that, as much as gorgeous language or big ideas, what matters is story, story, story, a national narrative. That, in a riveting psychodrama, was what he supplied on the steps of the Capitol.
His 18-minute speech, low on rhetoric, was just brutal. He simply slew his predecessor in front of a global audience. It was done, politely, with a surgical efficiency but, breaking with a tradition of inaugural niceness, it was still the visceral, close-quarter knifing of a rejected leader. Among many lethal thrusts, the killer line was: "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

In the Tradition --

2008-12-15T22:16:00.002-07:00

-- of how I've posted the first page of everything I finished, manuscript style, here's the first page of the first story I've written since March. Since I finished it this morning, I haven't had a chance to read it yet so I have no idea how it turned out.

It's called "Minor Theologians."

I Really Want to See This Movie:

2008-12-11T18:35:00.002-07:00

It's called Were the World Mine. And it has singing, dancing, falsettos, and, from the looks of it, a lot of half naked boys.

Proposition 8: The Funny or Die Musical!

2008-12-04T11:01:00.001-07:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

A Potential Way to Make "Twilight" Better:

2008-11-30T19:01:00.003-07:00

Sad Day

2008-11-21T06:35:00.002-07:00

ABC has offically not renewed any new episodes of the magnificant show, Pushing Daisies.

All right, we all know that the show was riding on the fence for this past season, considering more than a year passed since the season finale of season one and the premiere of season two; or that the ABC executives didn't advertise and promote the show through movies and billboards and relentless TV commercials; or that the writers' strike threw the piece into a conundrum. Yet there was still that distant, hopeful chance that the ABC executives would say, "We like this, there's a lot of acclaim and a built-in audience--" (Who, if they're like me, have been telling their friends to watch this show incessantly, and those people who didn't and I told you to, I'm ashamed of you) "-- we'll keep trying." If quality in the television world meant anything at all, this wouldn't happen, and the storylines would run their course until they were stale and unoriginal or until the creators thought that now would be a good time to stop them, when people didn't flock like mindless Communistic hordes to subpar medical dramas like Private Practice or Grey's Anatomy, which gain most of their audience not because they are well-developed and well-written shows but because the lead actors are incredibly attractive; or the consistant slew of crime dramas (though you could argue Pushing Daisies is a crime drama in itself, yet, unlike other shows on TV, it's so much more); and let's not forget anyone who thinks that Family Guy is something worth watching.

And ABC, in this case, is worse than FOX: FOX, at least when it came to regarding one of their biggest cult shows (Arrested Development), let it out for three seasons and tried to move it to so many different times to catch an audience (despite this being a primary reason it died).

Pushing Daisies was probably the most original, well-written, well-executed, wonderful to look at, full-character, spectacular show on television. The plots were interesting and the you cared about the people. There was humor and passion and depression and those heavy themes that do factor into fairy tales though you never see them on the surface levels. Sure, it could appeal to all ages, but the show worked because everyone cared about doing it.

Bryan Fuller has said that there will probably be a comic book series released to finish up the storylines (these might be the first comic books that I ever buy; I don't even own Watchmen, and wouldn't want to own Watchmen anyway) or that he might shop it around to other networks, or pitch it as a movie -- the show's more cinematic that Lost (also more interesting). And ABC hasn't said that it's "officially cancelled", though you know that's just to not get an armada of angry fans at their doorstep, making threats reminiscent of the time Marge Simpson rallied the people of Springfield to go against Itchy and Scratchy. So, of course, this comes off as patronizing, which might be even worse. I had heard Internet rumors that ABC would end the show at 13 episodes and then renew it for a third season, and as joyful as that sounds, it doesn't seem very logical.

So who's to blame for this? Well, obviously ABC for just moving their show to the backburner (it was off the air for two weeks so mindless drones could watch Dancing With the Stars results and the Country Music Awards), but that's too much of a cop-out. Really, it's you, the person who said, "Oh I'll get around to watching it sometime," after their friends who loyally watched it spoke highly and passionatley about the program; who decided that you'd rather watch something that didn't have any quality to it whatsoever, just so you don't have to think and can be carelessly entertained (sometime I'll talk about how I don't think entertainment has to make you feel like a vegetable). People should be ashamed of themselves.

This show should have been able to run its course, but it didn't and that's terrible.

Best TV on the Radio Song Ever

2008-11-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Pretty Much Fantastic:

2008-11-18T06:31:00.003-07:00

From the sounds of it, they're going ahead with the Arrested Development movie. While Maxim may or may not be the most reputable source, Ron Howard's speaking pretty postively. Watch the video now:

Bands Worth Hearting

2008-11-17T18:25:00.002-07:00

Hey, it's a video for The Deadly Syndrome, who are spectacular.

Off the Charts Homoeroticism

2008-11-16T14:26:00.003-07:00

From Saturday Night Live. Are they meaningful, thought-out, and intense pieces of satire? No. Are they pretty hysterical and left me entertained? Why, yes.

Spiders Are Filling Out Tax Returns

2008-11-11T21:23:00.001-07:00

Our Next President

2008-11-04T22:49:00.001-07:00

President Obama. It's fantastic to say. (Right now.)

VOTE

2008-11-04T06:24:00.005-07:00

It matters.

A Message from Moses

2008-11-02T11:50:00.005-07:00

Candidate's Favorite Books:

2008-11-02T09:10:00.002-07:00

Now, this is kinda important to me, but I'm always interested in what our leaders are reading. I feel that Obama's first choice is totally pandering, but the latter ones are honest and you can see a lot of his understanding of the world stemming from the novels.

Really, I'm not surprised at the McCain choices . . . I mean, Hemingway? The most goddamn masculine American author ever with a novel that's totally and completley about war war war. Personally, I don't much like Hemingway, and have put this argument forth many many times, that he's missing the humanity and complexity of Faulkner, the lyrcisim and poety of Fitzgerald, and the tragedy and immediacy of Steinbeck (I mean, Hemingway's all right, but he keeps getting all this attention that he doesn't deserve) and people have said, "Oh, you have to look underneath and between the lines to figure that out," which is silly since people are putting their interpretations and complications in themselves since it's hardly present and I'm going off on a tangent. Okay, I just wanted to say it makes sense McCain chose Hemingway, though, Senator, I'm pretty sure Robert Jordan is fighting the fascists not the communists (and not communistic fascists like Lenin or Castro, since Franco was all out right-right).

Alternative Covers

2008-11-02T08:51:00.003-07:00

BookNinja recently had this, uh, contest to redesign book covers -- make them misleading and such -- so that they looked like cheap, trashy fiction. Here are some of my favorites (some of them are just inherently funny while others will tickle you have you read the novel):

Click on the BookNinja link to see the others.

Anti-Americans

2008-10-26T18:24:00.003-06:00

The way I see it: the only people who are anti-American are the ones who don't go out there and vote.

Oh My Lord

2008-10-22T20:38:00.002-06:00

I think this is funny.

What I Hate About TV

2008-10-22T20:00:00.003-06:00

What I hate about TV is that you have to wait an entire week, after the plot has just gotten really intriguing, or the preview presents something that looks like it's going to be very very interesting, to watch it.

Case in point: Pushing Daisies, my favorite show right now and with each increasing episode becoming even better, for example, tonight being a very capabale balancing act of the drama (like last week's nun episode) w/r/t Emmerson Cod and his mother and his daughter, and that overly the top fantastic whimsy (like the circus episode), w/r/t the friend-escort company, which, of course, leaves me wanting more and realizing that there's a whole 'nother week before Ned's back.

So, come 7 o'clock next Wednesday, I'll be more than ecstatic but by 8'll be saying this exact same thing.

Okay--

2008-10-18T19:25:00.004-06:00

--so I'm not doing a lot of actual "blog writing" lately, but, for the record, it's not like I have an actual focus with this thing, and then to talk about nothing yet to pretend you're talking about something strikes me as being a bit silly.

So I just want to share these two YouTube videos of Barack Obama at a charity dinner, roasting away and having a great day. (Best line: "Barack is actually Swahili for 'That one.'")

All Right...(?)

2008-10-15T19:18:00.000-06:00

Old News Regarding a New Book

2008-10-12T19:14:00.003-06:00

By now, any real fans would have heard this and, certainly, I've been aware of this rumor for quite some time already, but I just now felt like sharing it for no reason in particular (except that The Simpsons were cancelled tonight so that there could be some baseball), and maybe to build up some excitement, though, in the end, I don't think hardly anyone I actually know cares, because the only person I've met who has said they've actively read Pynchon is lying and full of shit. STILL!

The rumor is this: Thomas Pynchon, awe-inspiring, paranoia-inducing, attention-grabbing, totally fascinating author of Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, and, most recently, Against the Day, is said to have a new one brewing, coming out, about to be exposed to us. I first heard about this through the literary message board that I frequent and recall being rather skeptical because, this is a man who had nearly 20 years between two books and his last came out in 2006, which wasn't as long ago as we all think.

I remember carrying Against the Day, which is 1100 pages in hardcover, around campus, along with the Norton Shakespeare, a factor that helped develop bicep muscles more than any iron-pumping I may or may not have undergone, and I really do like that book. Anyway, I wasn't expecting another Pynchon novel for a long long time.

But from the rumors, and some reporting on the LA Times, it appears that this is true, and we're getting a new Pynchon in August 2009 and I'm excited.

Let's not forget the projected new one from Gabriel Garcia Marquez later this year.

Sock This Silly Sixties Pop Songs

2008-10-11T18:49:00.001-06:00

The Facts Are These:

2008-10-01T21:27:00.003-06:00

Pushing Daisies is the best show on TV right now.

A Defense of Oprah:

2008-09-21T08:42:00.003-06:00

It's not an unknown fact that Oprah has an entire evil empire of media at her disposal. She controls television and magazines and dictates suburban housewives more than almost any other person on this planet. Yes, her story is as awe-inspiring as one of those self-help books and her reach is far and despite all the problems I have with her, her interview style and the way she introduces people ("Lades and gentlemen, Cormac MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMCCARTHYYYY!"), I think that the only honest part of her conglomeration, the only thing whose impact is actually benefical and benevolent, is her book club.

I've been through classes where people go, "Oh man, she chose that book?" And, yes, some of her choices have been real stinkers. Like:

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (which doesn't go with that whole creative nonfiction ethics thing as much as the fact that the book is terrible on all sorts of levels.)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (literary masturbation)
A New World by Eckhart Tolle.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
A couple collected works by Bill Cosby.

But, on the other hand, she has chosen some of the most important, moving, beautiful, and challenging novels of the 20th/21st century, including:

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
As I Lay Dying
The Sound and the Fury
A Light in August by William Faulkner
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugendis
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (actually, Oprah seems to be a major Morrison fan.)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Ana Karenina by Leo Tolsty (!)

See, the thing about Oprah is that quite a lot of people listen to her and all these books suddenly become huge. I mean, I saw Love in the Time of Cholera and The Road at gigantic chain stores where most of the people probably have never heard of Garcia Marquez or McCarthy previously. She helps these authors climb up the charts and -- and this is the important part -- she opens a wider world toward suburban housewives and middle aged women, her, you know, primary audience. And Josh Peck.

People are reading these books! To me, that seems more important than anything else. They are reading them, thinking about them, wondering how the themes or the voice or the delivery affects them, and then discussing them on the Internet. Even the people who say truly stupid things like, "Oh this book was so depressing that I didn't like it," on Amazon.com have at least thought about it a bit. We could get into an entire discussion of the purpose of literature and the movement of words, but I can't see how people can complain if these works, major works in many cases, reach out to more and more people.

A lot of the reaction against her reminds me of a lot of indie kids I know. You know the kind, who like a band simply because no one else likes them, or rather a few other people enjoy them but not a vast majority. Then, once the band gets big and known, through a TV commercial or quirky indie movie, they are automatically uncool. That just doesn't make sense to me. If you like something, you like it for however long you do, and the influence of others should not defer from that.

And books are so much more personal than almost any other form of media. Each and every person recieves their own pictures and images, their own views of the characters and interpretations of events. Even when they're read aloud, the interpretations are vastly different from person to person. You can share a book but you can't share the experience.

So yes, sometimes Oprah picks pieces that are overly melodramatic (Wally Lamb), are focused on incest and abuse, but I think its fantastic Faulkner, for a summer, recieved a larger readership; that people picked up a Russian family saga; or the Colombian portraits. It's unfair that many of these highly literate books should be regarded to college campuses and libraries when pure and true trash occupies many peoples' bookshelves.

Of course, I can see the problem with that people are only reading the books because Oprah has told them to. That they aren't going to discover them on their own and once they close the covers of Sound and the Fury, they're going to preorder the newest Dan Brown or Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steele book, which means they won't appreciate it in the way that it should be appreciated, but maybe, just maybe, a few seek out other books by the authors, refine their literary tastes and become better readers. Or, if not that, that these books remain with them for many many years later. Images from Faulkner and Garcia Marquez and McCarthy and Morrison still reside with me years after I've read them.

Her latest choice is The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which I read over the summer and it is very good. Yes, it has flaws, but it's a debut work and Wroblewski will need to figure out what works and what doesn't, but overall, it's very very good. I mean, Hamlet set in rural Wisoconsin mixed with a simple boy-and-his-dog story? That's a brilliant idea. And someday I think Wroblewski is going to write something very very good. Amazing, even.

Don't read it simply because Oprah suggestted it, but because it is just a very fine novel.

Grab Some Popcorn

2008-09-19T20:38:00.003-06:00

You May Have Heard

2008-09-14T19:48:00.002-06:00

On September 12th, David Foster Wallace hanged himself.

Very strange and very unexpected.

Despite his meager output, in terms of quantity because The Infinite Jest is 900 pages with over 150 pages of endnotes and his collected works weigh as much as the average American male, I haven't really dug deep into his bibliography, having only read a few essays and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, he was definitley an author I wanted to read more of.

He was one of the authors that people hold up of the best writers of "this" generation and played tennis when he was younger (actually charting).

He was only 46.

Here's some articles/net eulogies:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/158935

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/09/14/david_foster_wallace/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15kaku.html?em

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1841102,00.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94609615

http://www.themillionsblog.com/2008/09/david-foster-wallace-1962-2008.html

McSweeney's, under the header and above the typical archival links, is completley blank.

Obviously, this is very affecting; he was a really fantastic writer.

Grandparent's Day

2008-09-07T13:35:00.005-06:00

It's Grandparents' Day today, so in celebration, I thought I'd give them some attention.

Awesome people. And I swear to God, I'm not being sarcastic.

Can't Wait to See This:

2008-09-01T12:36:00.002-06:00

Because it's, you know, for the kids.

Ezra Koenig is a Real Cutie

2008-08-31T21:58:00.000-06:00

Awww.

CHANGE:

2008-08-28T21:09:00.001-06:00

"America, we are better than the last 8 years."
--Barack Obama.

I Want to Read this Book:

2008-08-25T20:36:00.001-06:00

I read her short story collection and though it gets bogged down in its own quirkiness and idiosyncricies towards the end, there's some delightful wordplay throughout and interesting characters. Here's another good one:

New TV on the Radio Record Coming Soon!

2008-08-23T08:32:00.006-06:00

Being home for a couple months really threw me out of the loop (I've been saying this a lot) so I just found out about a week ago that there's a new TV on the Radio record coming out on September 23rd.

It's called Dear Science and I've only heard two songs thus far, both of which I like quite a bit, and one of which is streaming on tvontheradio.com ("Golden Age").

There seems to be far more of a '50s influence, but TV on the Radio have always been a doo-whop/trip-hop/experimental rock sort of band, so it's in their genre, though they seem to be a lot looser and having a lot more fun. A lot of their loops and hooks remind me of the first Menomena album, which draws me to the record further.

As with any TV on the Radio song, it takes a few listens to really get it, both songs I've heard thus far -- "Golden Age" and "Dancing Chose", which, after he stops this bizarre rap, is simply fantastic -- but I also think that that's the appeal of TV on the Radio: on your first listen you go, "What did I just listen to? I have no idea but it was awesome." And then gradually you realize there's something even more amazing than what you originally thought.

Dear Science, probably won't be Return to Cookie Mountain, or it might be better, I doubt it (I'll explain theories about growths of bands later, if I remember), but I'm definitley buying it come September 23rd.

tvontheradio.com

Incidentally, I hear Okkervil River's sequel to Stage Names is pretty good. And Of Montreal have a new one coming out soon, too.

A Great Interview

2008-08-20T11:47:00.004-06:00

This week, Bookslut put out a really good interview with Chris Adrian, writer of The Children's Hospital, Gob's Grief, and A Better Angel. Adrian is, by far, hands down, one of the best writers working today, and I read Children's Hospital this summer and was so blown away that once this transfer comes through, I'm going to go and buy the hardcover McSweeneys edition.

I tried to order his short story collection when it came out in Springs, but that Barnes and Noble never delivered for some reason and I'm trying my luck again with this one in Fort Collins.

I guess in celebration of his short story collection being put out, Bookslut conducted this interview and the guy comes across as very humble and very funny. Here are some great moments:

Supernatural experiences are a big part of your fiction, but while there are other writers, like Kelly Link or Amiee Bender who use the supernatural or the fantastical as devices in their fiction, I don’t see you as part of that tradition. Do you?
Not so much, though I like those. Those are the types of writers that I think are interesting. I think all that stuff is neat. If there’s a magic pony in the story, chances are I’ll read it. I feel like I write about magic ponies a lot. Part of that is what keeps me interested, but also that I have a hard time telling the stories or, not so much the stories, but the sort of emotional transformations that occur to me, as possible and interesting to describe. I always have a much easier time with the help of a magic pony or a crabby angel or a ghost of a suicide or whatever.

The Children’s Hospital is a really big book. Was it longer when you started editing, or did it just keep getting larger?
Eli [Horowitz], the editor at McSweeney’s, and I cut out about four hundred manuscript pages. Almost none of it was stuff that happened on the hospital -- except for the big zombie scene.
I’m really, really upset that I’m never going to read the big zombie scene.
The zombie nurse attack.
That’s unbelievable. You’ll have to send it to me.
I tried to find it. When I was doing readings, I thought it would be more fun to read from the stuff that had been cut. But the zombie scene is now truly lost.
One day someone will find it in a trunk, like Emily Dickenson’s poems. The big zombie scene.

I like the sequence. I like ending with “Why Antichrist?”
The book was supposed to be called “Why Antichrist?” but they wouldn’t let me call it that. I wanted it to be a black cover with a little upside down white cross on it, but they seemed to think no one would buy it.

And then I’m doing a goofy kids book.
A kids book? That’s interesting. Is it already written?
I wrote one draft of it, and it got rejected from about, I guess, fourteen or fifteen children’s book publishers. The common refrain was, “What made you think this was suitable for children?”
That’s hilarious. So, have you found someone who does think it’s suitable for children?
No, but my editor at FSG is interested in seeing it. He heard a little bit about it and thought it sounded relatively neat, so I think he probably will say the same thing, but his being interested in it made me go back and look at it again. It’s fun to work on it anyway.

Incidentally, I don’t think of you as a gay writer, or someone who’s writing gay stories, but you’re clearly not in the closet either.
Someone looking hard enough at my books could probably find some stuff that makes sense in that way. But I never thought I warranted a cover with a shirtless guy with 3D nipples. That’s what seems to be on the cover of a lot of gay writers’ books. You get the shirtless 3D nipple cover.
Is it something you prefer people not mention?
No, it doesn’t matter.
Does your gayness go over at divinity school? Has it been an issue at all?
Everyone else is gay there too. Not really, but there are a lot of gay people there. It is decidedly not a problem. I’ve been lucky in that way. There are a lot of gay people in pediatrics too.
There’s this gay doctor who appears in your all of your books, Doctor Chandra…
Whose name…at one time you could rearrange the letters of his name to spell Chris Adrian.
I wondered how much of was a self-flagellating kind of thing. You’re always sort of bullying Dr. Chandra in your books.
I think of him getting bullied, not so much because he’s gay but because he’s incompetent. I guess it’s gratifying in some way to exaggerate that aspect of myself in a way that’s scary for the poor patients, I bet. I had a mom realize that I was the person who wrote that just as I was about to put a needle in her son’s back.

Really, it's a fantastic interview and you can read it all here. Then, go out and read The Children's Hospital or Gob's Grief, or A Better Angel, but I haven't read that one yet.

A Fantastic Premise

2008-08-16T07:45:00.002-06:00

In one of my many excursions on the Internet, as well as a site I frequently frequent, I came across this short story. And the premise is just so spectacular I had to talk about it (I would have done so earlier but I'm on the computer a far less time at home than I am at school). In a nutshell:

We all know about how scientists say eventually parents might be able to control the genes of their children -- give them blue eyes, equistrian features, and on -- to build the perfect child. With that option and the idea that being gay is a genetic condition in the same vain as being left-handed or near-sighted, parents might be able to make sure that the gene which carries the homosexuality trait (sidenote: I do believe this, the genetic thing), would be able to be erased, thusly, not forcing their kids to undergo the persecution, prejudice, and intolerance that comes with being gay. Unfortunatly, the same gene that carries the homosexual strand is the same one that contains the artistic one -- now, it's not saying that all artists are gay or anything, but that's the same gene homosexuality happens to reside, whether or not it's dormant -- and after years of eradicating that gene, the world suddenly loses all of its art.

I dunno, I just thought that that was genius and though the story is a piece of erotica (so: not safe for work), it is a really neat idea in general. I'm not going to say thought-provoking or anything along those lines, but I like it a lot. The story itself doesn't do a lot with the idea except set up a place for two boys to get in heat, which they do, but you have to wonder how this would have gone over had it been presented in a different medium?

Best Record of the Year (So Far [In My Opinion])

2008-07-14T21:01:00.003-06:00

Vampire Weekend!

Vampire Weekend

The playlist I got is a little out of order but seriously, there's been no other record from 2008 that I can consistantly play and never get tired of as well as jump to any song I please and still not feel like I'm missing out.

Also the playlist has some songs that aren't actually on the album. You'll figure it out.

I hope I'm not contributing to these guys' eventual, probably inevitable sophomore slump.

My Youngest Brother's Heroes

2008-05-27T19:44:00.002-06:00

Found out the other day my brothers heroes are Barack Obama and Hannah Montana.

I am not making this up.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom the Crystal Skull

2008-05-22T15:02:00.002-06:00

Is a very good movie.

To the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-22T08:16:00.002-06:00

A lot of people saw this at midnight last night, but with being a person unable to stay up into the wee hours of the morning, I get to see it today at 9:45.

This is Indiana Jones, people!

Due Out:

2008-05-13T14:37:00.001-06:00

A brand new Gabriel Garcia Marquez book.

This is really exciting, Garcia Marquez really changed my writing style and all that sort of stuff, gave me a new view of how I could approach writing things or reading literature or whatever. Apparently, it's due out towards the end of the year.

I'm going to buy it, even if it's the disappointing like Memories of My Melancholy Whores or Of Love and Other Demons. Because at least his exuberant prose style can carry some aspect of the narratives.

Follow this link to Guardian article announcement!

Though if it comes out later this year, it may get pitted against Roberto Bolano's supposed magnum opus, 2666. Whatever; I'll get both.

This is a Test of the Pitchfork.tv Broadcasting System

2008-05-13T11:31:00.001-06:00

(This is a test it is only a test you can stand single file put your head between your legs you can stop drop and roll because this is only a test dig it.)

Dumb Laws

2008-05-11T21:32:00.004-06:00

This commerical has been running fairly frequently lately and, I dunno, I think it's kind of silly. I mean, aren't there far more dangerous things than seatbelt-less drivers? Ooh, 50 kids died last year for not wearing seatbelts, but how many died from drunk drivers or were tasered by loose cops, bro?

And it's also difficult to take a commercial seriously where a grandmother runs over a bush on a lawn mower. Bet she was wearing her seatbelt though.

One of the Best Scenes Ever:

2008-05-06T19:12:00.003-06:00

So it's May and very very soon Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be coming out. And we're going to prepare ourselves for it, together, as a community (of three people), and it's going to be fucking awesome because it's Indiana Jones, people. To start things off, here's one of the best scenes ever committed to film:

Loads more Indiana Jones things coming up when I think of them.

Fortune Cookies

2008-05-04T07:40:00.004-06:00

Is it just me, or have fortune cookies got kinda lame? I mean, I love Panda Express and eat there all the time, but, goddammit, these cookies just aren't cool:

Do not hide your feelings: let others know where they stand.

You have a yearning for perfection.

An investment opportunity will be profitable for you.

A photo doesn't capture your charm.

Now, if anyone knows any fortunes that are cool (I dunno, something like "You will find love on Flag Day"), that actually tell fortunes, share 'em! Because it might be that I'm eating at Panda Express....

Still My Favorite Human Giant Skit

2008-04-28T21:40:00.003-06:00

Before they made it to MTV, The Human Giant were big on the Internet and I discovered them when I first discovered Tapes 'n Tapes (they have a new album out called Walk It Off which is all right, though not as good as The Loon. I mean, with The Loon, you could play that thing loud. I mean, it was a record meant to be played at full volume: total unpretentious, unbridled rock and roll. And while this new one does provide a good listen, I guess it's kind of lacking the energy of the debut, which is sad). Clell Tickle was their marketing person and he's an indie marketing guru. If you watch, you'll see why.

For David Foster Wallace Fans:

2008-04-23T21:23:00.002-06:00

Birthday

2008-04-23T06:39:00.003-06:00

Today's the birthday of the bard Shakespeare
Strangely enough he died today as well
Today he also happened to bite dust
Cervantes too for that matter, oh man
Of all day's to die today would be it.

Anniversary:

2008-04-20T21:22:00.001-06:00

On April 20th of my freshman year (2006?) I premiered the last movie that I made that was actually any decent. It was called Toilet Trained and Dumb; I kinda liked that one.

Ha!

2008-04-19T16:06:00.001-06:00

New Dæmonomania Cover

2008-04-19T08:07:00.003-06:00

I was just thinking about last night or this morning -- actually, I'd been thinking about it for quite sometime, constantly checking Amazon.com or the Overlook Press website, trying to find news of the latest edition of Dæmonomania, the third part of John Crowley's Ægypt cycle.

All four books of the cycle have been released so far: Ægypt (now The Solitudes), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, all in different editions from different publishers. Overlook Press, this small independent publishing company who pretty much delivers what their name promises, have so far put out the first two books in the series, with the latter two coming out in May and September respectively. They are trying to make the books look like they belong together in a series (only time will tell if anyone ever puts all four books together in one massive omnibus; all together there are still much longer books: War & Peace, Against the Day, the Spanish edition of 2666, which is coming out this November, more on that later) and I'm all about that.

John Crowley is quite possibly the best living author in America; he ranks with the best living authors of the entire world; he'll probably be someone revered and studied decades from now. He's that good. He has magnificent prose, spectacular characters, relatable but still bizarreevents . . . pretty much anything you could ever ask for in a book. And in the end, it's all very human and beautiful and you go through wide ranges of emotions and all stuff. On top of all that, it's just fantastic writing.

If I had $100 at my disposal, I would've totally ordered the 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, but I don't.

Anyway, to help clear up this sporadic entry, here's the cover of Dæmonomania, which I cannot wait to read. I hear it's the most hyper, energetic, and wild entry of the series, which would make sense, since the first book serves as an introduction, the set-up; book two is like a dream, lyrical and with everyone amazed at where they're at; so the third book would have to be when all hell breaks loose, and the final part brings up the conclusion.

Read the other books in the series. Or Little, Big, which is my favorite book right now (I'd say of all time but at this time last year that was One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I still find fantastic).

A Sex Scene I Once Wrote

2008-04-17T13:17:00.001-06:00

Placing kisses down Isaac’s neck, his chest, his stomach, Skyler slowly descended down towards the button of his jeans and utilizing his teeth he was able to pull them open and down and he rubbed his face over the cloth of Isaac’s boxers who lifted his hips, dug his fingernails into his palms and strained strained strained while Skyler removed his underwear completely, presented one of the condoms, licked Isaac like a lollipop before he slid the condom on and before Isaac had a chance to do the same to him, Skyler had stripped off his own pants and put on his own condom and then Isaac felt the other boy’s weight on him and for awhile he couldn’t see anything but close-ups of Skyler, not only limited to his face, and even when Skyler did something to him that he couldn’t do at the same time, all he focused on was his partner, and on the radio the CD changed and Isaac grabbed Skyler’s head with him still in Skyler’s mouth as the CD player switched discs, then Iggy Pop’s “Some Weird Sin” came through the speakers and Isaac allowed him to resume and moments later Skyler was inside of him and at first it hurt really badly but then he was inside of Skyler and their bodies were soaked with sweat, Isaac’s Beatle-hair splattered against his forehead in long, wet strands stinging his eyes while Skyler’s shorter hair jutted out in points mimicking Gothic cathedrals and Isaac found out that he was, in fact, a moaner and many times Skyler had to envelop him with his mouth as they thrust and moved and sweated until at that last singular moment when the condoms were ripped away and the explosions followed, shaking their bodies, sending them into spasms, and they collapses into one another, gluing together into each other’s boy-milk….

Poetry:

2008-04-12T16:23:00.003-06:00

As a voracious reader, it should be said that I'm horribly underread when it comes to poetry. Unlike with prose or fiction whose major limit is that there's just way too much to get to, I don't actively seek out poems. And it's not that I don't like them or anything -- some poems have loads to say and they say them magnificantly -- it's just that . . . and I'm trying to think of the best way to say this without coming off as a philistine . . . I don't actively seek them out. The reasons why this may be true probably run long and deep and through woods that I'm not about to explore in the blogosphere but mostly because they don't interest me, I suppose. Bad experiences with classes maybe? Too many terribly read poems from high school? The failure of my own poetry from the very first creative writing class I took o so long ago? I don't know. I'm trying to justify this and I already said I wouldn't.

The last poem (until these) I sought out was Pale Fire, which was a piece of huge metafiction, so it wasn't just a poem but a dissertation of a poem, a chase adventure, a gay romp through imaginary kingdoms, an exploration of envy and a man's mentality breaking down, and just a fascination with the written word. And the poem in that book might not have been all the important to the actual understanding of the book, you know?

Anyway, in class we read "Emergency" from Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son collection, which I read wrong the first time I read it (I didn't know if I should read them as a series of short stories or as a mix-up novel) and I was speaking to the professor about Johnson just in general, because it appears I'm the only one who's read other books by the guy. He told me the guy started off as a poet, which is why you get some fantastic lines in the prose (just because you're a poet initially doesn't suggest that's the only way to write fantastic lines of prose; look at: John Crowley, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cormac McCarthy; we could go on), and suggested I look at The Incognito Lounge.

Which is a strangely compelling collection. Look at these:

THE CIRCLE
I passed a helicopter
crashed in the street today,
where stunned and suddenly grief-torn
passers-by tried to explain
over and over, a hundred ways, what
had happened. Some cried over the pilot,
others stole money from his wallet --
I heard the one responsible for his death
claiming the pilot didn't need it any more,
and whether he spoke of the pilot's
money or his life wasn't clear.
The scene had a subaqueous timbre
that I recognize now as a light
that shines in in the dreams I have when I sleep
on my back and wake up half-drowned.
However I tried to circumnavigate
the circus of fire and mourning --
the machine burst ajar like a bug,
the corpse a lunch pail
left open and silly music coming out --
I couldn't seem to find a way
that didn't lead straight to the heart of the trouble
and involve me forever in their grief.

THE INCOGNITO LOUNGE (final stanza)
Every bus ride is like this one,
in the back the same two uniformed boy scouts
de-pansting a little girl, up front
the woman whose mission is to tell the driver
over and over to shut up.
Maybe you permit yourself to find
it beautiful on the bus as it wafts
like a dirigible toward suburbia
over a continent of salons,
over the robot desert that now turns
purple and comes slowly through the dust.
This is the moment you'll seek
the words for over the imitation
and actual wood of successive
tabletops indefatigably,
when you watched a baby child
catch a bee against the tinted glass
and were married to a deep
comprehension and terror.

The other day I was at my show and just looking up stuff about Wilco. Jeff Tweedy in particular and much to my surprise, turns out the guy wrote a book of poems and, further to my surprise, our library carried it (Morgan Library is the best library in the world; maybe not but it's the best I've ever had a membership with). I grabbed it and read it and liked it, a little dismayed at first because the poems sometimes felt that they needed that musical arrangement to really beef them up (there's this guy who said that the people who would be poets in the '60s became rock musicians, i.e. John Lennon, Bob Dylan) but then I stumbled over this really fantastic one:

ANOTHER GREAT THING
the best way
to fell your blood
is to lie
tell bold ties
about books
(even better)
say
you write
listen,
lying won't help at all
unless,
you pick the right people
people who know
how to write and lie
o, and then the blood will pound
discoteque-esque
otherwise
it won't at all

Now, I've written song lyrics and yes I think that they can be poetic or whatever (look at Cloud Cult: "You can take it in stride/Or you can take it right between the eyes/Suck up/Suck up/Take your medicine"; "I shook hands with a man who honestly thought he was the Grandson of Jesus with a penchant for pinchies/He served us communion of cola and twinkies") but I also thinks there's a different rhythm that poetry in the epic general and song lyrics fall on and often times you get these really fantastic lines that are just missing something without that musical arrangement. And the Tweedy book kind of goes in and out of those kind of things.

So there's been the extent of my poetry reading lately and chances are I'm not going to really look for a lot more since I have some Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, John Crowley, Roberto Bolano, E. L. Doctorow, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tim O'Brien, Steven Millhauser, William Shakespeare, Oakley Hall, Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith, Chris Adrian, Doris Lessing, Herman Melville, Richard Adams, Michael Chabon, and Christ knows how many more left to read.

Conan Smith

2008-04-09T13:26:00.004-06:00

In my three years in Creative Writing classes I've had most of them with this kid named Conan Smith. The shortest way to describe him, I suppose, would have to be a socialist cowboy, and his stories -- very McCarthy in nature -- occur in the old West or the modern West, or just somewhere where violence is prevelant. Except for one, which was Kerouac in nature and wasn't that great, but I attribute that mostly to the Kerouac influence.

Like every writer in our age group, his stories are not devoid of weaknesses: cliches, contrivances, awkwardness, underdeveloped characters, missed opportunities . . . but one thing that shines out in all of the fiction I've read of his so far is just his prose style. Yes, sometimes he gets a little winded and overstates, or doesn't find the exact way he wants to say something, but when he gets it, he probably has the best prose styling of pretty much anyone in my classes.

Look at this paragraph:

He sat there on the hand quilted afghan that somone put a lot of time into. Its bright orange design jetting off in a few different directions, partially revealing a peace symbol. He glanced down and watcher her side move up and down slowly with each breath -- as he began to lose his. Such a flawless creature lying perfectly, such a beautiful set of Aegean Sea colored eyes and a well manicured complexion. Her long brown hair with bright highlights spilling over the pillow and blanket. He snuggled in next to her and nibbled her ear while exhaling his warm freshly brushed teeth into her ear. Her body shuddered and she rolled over. He pulled the pink and black sleeping patch off, revealing those bright evil eyes. She pulled him in for a kiss, no ordinary kiss but a kiss of love. She reached into his pants and pulled him out. They went at it for eight or ten minutes, with her turned around not facing him and only feeling his member and hand pulling her hair back as she let out brief cries of satisfaction. As he released himself into her he pulled her hair and held his other hand strong around her lumbar pressing in hard causing a spasm of muscular tension to release. She collasped on the bed and he leaned back. Her legs began to shake and twitch involuntarily and he rached to the back of her neck. He pulled her close, kissing her on the back and shoulders to distract her from the nervous tick.
The night sky was turning from a light shade of balck into a dark blue as the air became crisp and new.

Pages from My Previous Notebook

2008-04-05T19:45:00.004-06:00

2008-03-30T22:48:00.004-06:00

And it's okay if this world had a billion saviors, 'cause there's so many things to be saved.

--Craig Minowa

There Will Be Vader

2008-03-23T21:00:00.000-06:00

Top 10 Lists

2008-03-17T12:31:00.004-06:00

Everybody does them, and for some reason, people choose to do 10. Why not 8? Why not 5? Or 3? What's so special about 10? I guess it's just a nice round number.

Well, in an act of pure pretentious, pompousness, and anything else, here are my 10 favorite records and movies from the year 2007 . . . postdated by 3 months. Alas. Also, I'm bored at home and it's too cold outside to take the dog for a walk. Bummer.

MOVIES:
Ratatouille (this is actually my favorite of the year. For long moments I thought of No Country for Old Men and There WIll Be Blood, as they are the ones who recieved the most attention; but I feel -- like The Indredibles before it -- that there was no other movie so well put together, so satisfying, so heartwarming, funny, sad, hopeful, looking, and magical, yes magical! movie than Ratatouille. It's my number one.)
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
The Simpsons Movie (which stands as the movie I most watched in 2007.)
3:10 to Yuma
Juno
Hairspray
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Darjeeling Limited
Stardust

MUSIC:
The Meaning of 8 -- Cloud Cult
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga -- Spoon
Friend and Foe -- Menomena
Sky Blue Sky -- Wilco
Person Pitch -- Panda Bear
In Rainbows -- Radiohead
The Ortolan -- The Deadly Syndrome
100 Days 100 Nights -- Sharon Jones and the Dap-King
Boxer -- The National
Sound of Silver -- LCD Soundsystem

And as for books, since that's what I'm mostly all about, here are the ten best reads I had, because I don't remember all the books that are strictly 2007 (not including any re-reads).

BOOKS:
Little, Big by John Crowley (best book ever.)
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (started in December of '06 and finished January '07.)
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J. K. Rowling
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznik
The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges

All right, I'm done . . . for now!

100 Best Last Lines from Novels

2008-03-13T20:35:00.005-06:00

The American Book Review recently published this list, which someone brought to my attention. If you can't infer from the title of this post, it's a ranking of 100 great last lines of books; something you don't always see. It's a pretty good list: strong, with a good mixture of good books. Not perfect (I mean, On the Road has been included -- screw you Kerouac -- and My Antonia and two Hemingway pieces), but really really good.

Some of my favorites, in order of their appearence:

4. …I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. –James Joyce, Ulysses
(1922)

12. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita. –Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

15. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. –Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

20. ‘I shall feel proud and satisfied to have been the first author to enjoy the full fruit of his writings, as I desired, because my only desire has been to make men hate those false, absurd histories in books of chivalry, which thanks to the exploits of my real Don Quixote are even now tottering, and without any doubt will soon tumble to the ground. Farewell.’ –Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605, 1615; trans. John Rutherford)

25. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. –Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

31. Now everybody— –Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)

50. "Poor Grendel’s had an accident," I whisper. "So may you all." –John Gardner, Grendel (1971)

66. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. –A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

78. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die. –Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)

94. From the sky a swift Angel descends, an Angel with a golden helmet and green spurs, a flaming sword in his hand, an Angel escaped from the Indo-Hispanic altars of opulent hunger, from need overcome by sleep, from the coupling of opposites: body and soul, wakefulness and death, living and sleeping, remembering and desiring, imagining: the happy boy who reaches the sad land carries all this on his lips, he bears the memory of death, white and extinguished, like the flame that went out in his mother’s belly: for a swift, marvelous instant, the boy being born knows that this light of memory, wisdom, and death was an Angel and that this other Angel who flies from the navel of heaven with the sword in his hand is the fraternal enemy of the first: he is the Baroque Angel, with a sword in his hand and quetzal wings, and a serpent doublet, and a golden helmet, the Angel strikes, strikes the lips of the boy being born on the beach: the burning and painful sword strikes his lips and the boy forgets, he forgets everything forgets everything,
f
o
r
g
e
t
s
–Carlos Fuentes, Christopher Unborn (1987;
trans. Alfred MacAdam and Carlos Fuentes)

With the exception of the Fuentes entry (which was too cool not to post) I've read all those, as well as a good majority of those books on the list. Bragging rights all around.

I think it's interesting to think of last lines. So often there has been a lot of focus on the first line, on how that's what grabs the reader and keeps them reading your work; but the last line is just as important, because that's what stays with them.

Though of course, if the entire book sucks the last line isn't going to save anything -- I'm looking at you The Swimming-Pool Library.

So Cool:

2008-03-12T21:04:00.004-06:00

You may have heard of the Take Away Show -- this French blog that features indie bands walking the streets of (usually) Paris, playing their songs. Architecture in Helsinki leads a conga line to "Like It or Not"; Final Fantasy -- aka Owen Pallett -- tries to make a running escape; Yeasayer perform a few numbers, between giggles, in the subway; Vampire Weekend takes a nice stroll into a cafe . . . it's really a great site and since I've really discovered it (I swear I've seen some of these videos on YouTube before), I'm addicted.

Just like since really finally giving Menomena the listen they deserve, I've become addicted to them, too. My stereo has been overtaken by the new Cloud Cult (which is amazing), Friend and Foe (which is also amazing), and Return to Cookie Mountain (which I guess you can infer is also amazing) and I think that's a really great treat for my stereo, you know? Well, Menomena did the video and they played in the alleyway but these kids started dancing and it's really worth checking out.

#62.3 - Menomena - Wet and Rusting
by lablogotheque

Wander over to the site; you won't find a better way to spend some time.

Is There Anything Jeff Tweedy Can't Do?

2008-03-09T20:55:00.003-06:00

I mean, he can take the chaotic arrangement of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)", an outstanding song, and maybe it into this haunting acoustic piece:

And he knows how to work the crowd:

I've been listening to these guys since high school...I gotta get him into KCSU.

Quite Proud of Myself

2008-03-09T10:55:00.006-06:00

On Friday I finished the first draft of my latest short story, called "Ojitos." I've been running through already, creating the typescript, and I think that it's all right. There's certainly some moments I'm proud of and others I'm just like, "What was I thinking when I wrote that?"

Every once in awhile someone will ask me what it's about and I tell them basically one of the characters and they go: "Oh, like that monster in Pan's Labyrinth?" And I go: "No, it's more like Minority Report." Which I hold as Steven Spielberg's strongest movie of his dark period, the one that started after Schindler's List and has continued on today (look at AI, War of the World, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park if you don't believe me). I love Minority Report, I don't think I've ever said that enough . . . I don't think you can say it enough. It's just so well-executed, such a great balance of ideas, character, story, and adventure.

Anyway, this is the scene in question:

This story is the first one I've ever written in first person. I mean ever. Well, I did first person plural once, but that doesn't count. I just hate the first narrator, I think it feels cheap, almost an easy way to handle things (at least I did). But writing this story was an uphill struggle and each page was written two or three times and God knows how many the typescript's going to get. At least I can say I did it and can no return to my detached third person narrator, where I can go on any tangent that I want, talk about anything that I feel like, and not always have to ask myself if the character would say that with each and every sentence. Screw that. And my third narrator is just a disembodied thing so take that.

Screw you first person. I hope you get cholera.

Oh, I also finished writing an essay, read the first half of this book called Tabloid Dreams, and workshopped a 34-page story. Been quite a productive weekend so far but I think the afternoon's shot because I want to go watch that movie now.

And More Importantly:

2008-03-06T12:05:00.005-07:00

Happy birthday, Gabriel García Márquez!

If you haven't already, go out and buy and read these books:

Those are his three best and if you click on the covers, it should take you to some links.

So happy 81st birthday, Gabriel García Márquez; to a life of spectacular literature! Can't wait for more.

He's one of the writers who seriously changed my life.

This May've Made Star Wars Even Better:

2008-03-06T11:39:00.001-07:00

You know: if it were done by Saul Bass:

And the special edition:

It's Out!

2008-03-05T22:01:00.003-07:00

Cloud Cult put out the digital download of their new album today. I'm listening to it now. I'm diggin' it.

Jeff Tweedy is Increasingly Becoming More of One of My Heroes

2008-03-02T10:20:00.004-07:00

These are from a year or so back, but who cares? Wait till about 1:10 into the video:

His explanation:

Then he talks about talking:

Then he messes up:

You could make a narrative out of these things.

Emo-o-mania!

2008-03-02T09:49:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I was at Barnes and Noble, which has become a staple of my Saturdays, but I don't care (I actually bought something this time around: The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. Can't wait to read it). I came across this book called Dorm Porn -- there were actually two volumes of them and I looked at the second one because the kid was hotter; that shaggy hair and everything -- which was one of the most hysterical things I've read in awhile. It's basically the equivalent of those videos where a guy orders a pizza, then the delivery boy, who always is really attractive, shows up and the orderer can't find any cash to pay him with and the delivery boy says: "Well, you did order extra sausage," before they end up going at it on the steps or nearest couch, except in print. I also read a couple anthologies of Edward Gorey's work.

Has Hot Topic claimed Gorey yet? I know they have a hold on Tim Burton and even Invader Zim has fallen into them; but has Gorey been incorporated?

Whatever it is, Gothic-Victorian picture books are all that any kid ever needs!

The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

A Nabokovian Debackle

2008-02-28T19:39:00.003-07:00

Thus far, I've only read three novels by Vladimir Nabokov. One was a piece of absolute genius (Pale Fire), one was pretty good (Lolita) and one I didn't care for as much (Pnin). I'm still going to get through Ada one of these days -- in all likelihood sometime in the next coming year (yet I did read three Pynchon books within months of each other and it's been about a year since I finished Against the Day and have finally started pursuing Mason & Dixon). I do like Nabokov, though sometimes it's difficult to remember that you have to absorb his novels slowly, like you would for a Pynchon or a John Crowley (whose better than any of them), because they're about 300 pages or so for the most part and you get that momentum of flipping through the pages. Anyway: he's worth checking out.

Which brings up this point: apparently before he died, oh so many years ago, he was working on another novel and had gotten someway into the first draft-- which he wrote on lined index cards, a craft he gave to John Shade -- when he kicked the bucket. He instructed his son not to publish the novel, to burn it; it was far from finished, written out on only 50 index cards, which apparently makes up about 30 manuscript pages, and I suppose he didn't think it was strong enough to carry the Nabokov label. As it turns out, his son did not burn the draft but he didn't publish it either, keeping those notebook cards under safe keeping someplace or another. Now he's debating about whether or not it's time to allow us, the reading masses, to see the novel.

Slate recently ran a couple pieces concerning the piece, which you should read right now (this isn't a non-profit radio station; the FCC isn't watching me, I can call to action as much as I want):

The Last Work of Vladimir Nabokov Part I

The Last Work of Vladimir Nabokov Part II

Both links provide plenty of other links to other parts of the site, of other opinions, and whatnot, that could very well keep you glued here for hours. They are worth checking out, as well.

The novel itself does sound interesting, according to these articles, and I bet there are plenty of people out there who would jump at the chance of reading it, as unfinished, incomplete, or unputtogether (I made that last one up) it is. The whole story surronding the debackle is ripe for a story of its own, and Rosenbaum numerous times compares it to Hamlet. Which, if you read the article, you'll find it makes more sense.

I read both Stoppard and Banville's responses to the first article and they both make interesting points. Till when do we respect the wishes of the artist about his work? When an artist releases his or her piece, it's out of their hands, up for interpretation from anybody despite what the artist initially intends. Sure, their ideas could influence how people think of their work, but once it's gone, it's gone. So, doesn't it make sense that an artist, of any medium, really, should have enough time to perfect it to the best of their ability before it's released?

Then again, many of us readers are hard-core readers, and often times when you find someone you like, you want to read everything they've written, no matter how long it takes (I only have one more Gabriel Garcia Marquez book to read before getting through his completed works). And even the lesser work of a great writer is still better than the best work of an average or mediocre one.

On top of that, without people who have been instructed to destroy manuscripts before they were released we wouldn't have most of Franz Kafka's works, This Side of Paradise, or works by Truman Capote, Mark Twain, Balzac, and Marlowe. Yet that poses another problem: the responsibilty of it all. Though Frank Herbert's dead, there've been a great deal of Dune books based off the notes he left, and the same thing's going for that Wheel of Time serires. Both of which are absolutley dreadful and I wouldn't cry if they were lost in the labyrinth of time. Then you have Tolkien's son. The publication of The Silmarillion was understandable but the man pretty much whored out all of his father's works. We keep getting them and they're all terrible. I mean, even if I'm not as big a fan of Lord of the Rings as I used to be (great setting; not-so-great characters), don't you think there needs to be some level of respect?

As for this issue: I'm not going to put my allegiance to one group or another just yet (I mean, this isn't Barak Obama/Hilary Clinton decisions; this is far more important). I will say that I will be really disappointed if those 30 cards meet the flames -- and I'll get over it -- but if the book comes out, I'll definitley read it.

Another Cloud Cult Song

2008-02-27T18:15:00.003-07:00

Based off these two songs I've gotten, the new album is going to be great.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0lmel0sjzfm

New Cloud Cult Song!

2008-02-22T12:02:00.002-07:00

Imagine coming home from classes, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches before going off to work on the radio, and finding a new CLOUD CULT song! It makes for one splendid Friday midday.

Irony:

2008-02-21T20:07:00.004-07:00

I was talking about it the other day to a friend: I'm really private when it comes to music. Sure, I'll share it with anyone, but I don't listen to it with groups of people. I like having it for myself, experiencing it by myself; and somehow, sitting in a room listening to a music with a group of people just doesn't appeal to me. Nor does playing video games or watching me. I'm a very solitary person I suppose. What makes the whole music thing more hilarious is that I'm a DJ. Though that's the whole sharing thing again. I'm playing the music, but not actually listening to it with anybody, trapped in the basement of the LSC, all alone with that soundboard.

Weird.

Also weird: I'm writing my first story ever in first person. I usually hate using it, it feels a cheap way to make you associate with the character and I'm all about keeping psychic distance, but right now it's a really interesting experience. Testing it out, seeing what I can do with it. Which is what I use short stories for: experimenting with literary methods (that almost sounds sexual -- and you know what? it is). I can go back to anyone of the short stories I've written, as craptastic as they may be, and tell you what I was trying to do. I'd list them now, but without having read them, it wouldn't make much sense would it?

To the Church of the Red Cave

2008-02-20T19:50:00.005-07:00

Something about this song almost makes me cry. I can't explain it.

Note:

2008-02-15T20:39:00.003-07:00

So: in the new Indiana Jones trailer, there's a bit that looks a little computer-touched, if you know what I mean. It's maybe a minute in, right after Dr. Jones is first officialy introduced -- the thing people on the IMDB boards are calling Ray Winstones's CGI pants extravaganze. What happened, to explain it all, is that the MPAA told Paramount and Spielberg that having guns that close in the frame wasn't appropriate for all audiences, never mind the shootouts, car crashes, punches, gun cockings, explosions, and imitiable dangerous actions that follow afterwards. In the international version the weapons are intact and also the American flag has been 86ed.

Strage.

Why are the MPAA still around? What's it going to take to bring them down? Come on, filmmakers, someone out there has to have the power of Radiohead and say "Screw you" to the bigwigs. The MPAA itself, which treats us as mentally challenged children -- us! usually intelligent, grounded people -- doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to bring down; already it's too loose in its construction, barely holding together any respect or acknowledgement anymore. You don't need This Film is Not Yet Rated to tell you that (though it is interesting).

Funny how something created to protect artists from censorship became the biggest black-blocker there ever could be . . . oh wait, no it isn't. It was inevitable.

Oh My God, oh My God, oh My GOD!

2008-02-14T12:42:00.004-07:00

Screw Batman and Speed Racer and Harry Potter and Hellboy and pretty much anything else that's coming out this year. You wanna know why? That's right: it's the latest installment of Indiana Jones!

Now you know what? Raiders of the Lost Ark may be my favorite movie. I don't think it's one of the greatest movies of all time, or that it should be held in regards with others: it is the greatest. That movie has everything that movies were invented for: fun, adventure, hilarity, thought-provoking questions, which can get bundled down, as well as a hero who is just plain lucky and unlike the lower level French professor who is just one lesson ahead of the students, you're right in line with this course of thinking. It's brilliant filmmaking and I've watched that movie so many times...but still get all invested into the story.

So the trailer for the new installment was released today: I cannot wait to see it. And you shouldn't either.

Found It!

2008-02-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

It's the version of "Brazil" featured in the film of the same title. Can't tell you how long I've been looking for this.

Things You can Apparently do with Guitar Hero II

2008-02-08T12:00:00.002-07:00

So someone manipulated Guitar Hero to play Buddy Rich's "Channel One Suite," which may be my favorite jazz song of all time. I remember I played it when in my high school jazz band and it probably stands as the most difficult song I've ever attempted. The first time I got through it completley, with the least amount of screwing up, was probably one of the best days of my entire musical career. There's about seventeen different time changes and tempo variations, and once you nab down the sequence of notes (I'm speaking of the real ones here) you have to then keep the rhythms going, which, as I mentioned, tend to fluxuate at their own whim. Once played together it sounds amazing, spectacular, and just plain ole awesome. Our group only did it once live and it was all right -- there were better verions in rehearsal -- because most people didn't care about the music, which was sad. I worked on that song so much I still have a lot of it memorized.

However, I still think it's more impressive if you can play the song for real, but this is fun to watch, though he does cut out the drum solo. What's with that?

Incidentally, does anyone know how to make YouTube not suck with Blogger? I can't post both videos. Lame. Anyway, scroll down to see both videos.

Guitar Hero- Channel One Suite part 1

2008-02-08T11:59:00.003-07:00

Guitar Hero- Channel One Suite part 2

2008-02-08T11:59:00.001-07:00