I. My taxidermy book uses its central historical figure the way most people are used: for someone else’s personal gain. In this case, my own. What the life of Carl Akeley, the oft-called Father of Modern Taxidermy, got me was both an ongoing narrative and also a kind of structural cubby closet in which I [...]
I. Books Slow, here. I finished Didion’s Blue Nights this morning, which was a breeze to read through. It’s too soon for me to articulate how or why, but it seemed in this book that her mantric style and the brevity of the chapters did something to the grief running throughout that’s different from what [...]
:: Read on
(Continued from yesterday.) II. They will not help you in the work you have to do regardless of how you understand that work. If you have decided for your work that a faithful adherence to the factual record is your best strategy, conservative arguments will not tell you how to adhere to that record. Nor [...]
:: Read on
This is an insider post. For the majority of you unencumbered by this debate that’s been going on, I’ll point you here. Everyone else keep reading. N.B.: I’ve been pretty sick this week, and in the midst of being sick I’ve been in the midst of a large annual conference of writers. I. The glaring, [...]
I care more about the ambitious Sigma Chi boy down the road’s plans for next year in his bid for house pledgemaster than I do about whom the editors of Rolling Stone think, this year, are, in order, the top 100 guitarists of all time. It is the exact sort of non-journalistic ad-seller that makes [...]
The problem with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is the problem with all the past alternate Zeldas: redundant parts that get tedious and turn play into chores. Start with Ocarina of Time which is flawless. God, remember Ocarina of Time? Yes, there was that wacky goosechase/errand boy mini-quest where you had to pass successive [...]
IDEA ONE This idea is from Nathan Heller’s review in The New Yorker of new books on the incredible Pauline Kael: In a 1964 essay [...] Kael fretted about “structural disintegration” in movies, a loss of the “narrative sense” that used to make even the bad ones palatable. She saw it as a symptom of [...]
:: Read on
These days I like premature pronouncements. Steelers win the Super Bowl. The Trip came to Tuscaloosa tonight (and only tonight, is how art-house flicks work down here). An improvised drama about Steve Coogan going through the north of England touring nice restaurants and taking Rob Brydon with him. I’d never heard of him either, but [...]
:: Read on
From Robert Root’s chiefly problematic The Nonfictionist’s Guide (the title of which I greatly admire): Contemporary creative nonfiction abounds and examples of idiosyncratic experimental forms. Some, like Nancy Willard’s “The Friendship Tarot” or John McPhee’s “The Search for Marvin Gardens,” are so distinctive and individual that they are unlikely to lead directly to anyone else’s [...]
:: Read on
Not that kind of New Criticism! Back in April, I whined about book reviews online being too long! Gosh: they’re long. I said that if people wrote book reviews offline for an online readership, the reviews were wordy and long and took their time getting to their points. And but then if they were written [...]
:: Read on
She’s a smarter writer than everyone, so when she takes on this sort of thing we’re all smart to listen. Dinty W. Moore (let’s hope there’s a relation but I doubt it) over at the Brevity blog calls her thing absurd and writes it off as “memoir bashing.” He’s upset that Lorrie Moore seems (anti-Shieldsly) [...]
:: Read on
The basic premise of Judt’s great book is that the West is in a very bad way and this is because of its ever growing inequality. The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. The solution is a retooling of the conversations we have around public policy. He’s for social democracy. Social [...]
:: Read on
In other recently-shared-on-Facebook news, back at the end of last month I linked to 3eanuts, which tramps through Garfield Minus Garfield territory by removing Schulz’s final panels in order to wallow in the angst built in the first three. Facebook friends—well, actual dear friends the Madej’s (say /MADGE-ee/)—leapt to Schulz’s defense, arguing that such a [...]
From June 2004: The tagline on the new ad campaign for Las Vegas as a tourist destination is something along the lines of: “Vegas — What happens here stays here.” In other words, Vegas is presenting itself as a kind of anything-goes Eden of hedonism, a place for young & old alike to visit and [...]
I’m behind. Oh, just way behind on all my magazines (pay no attention to the New Yorkers buckling N’s midcentury endtable in the corner). I read the second half (story onward) of the January 2011 issue. I’d like to come back to the story by Mark Slouka in a future post. It’s incredible. Well, here, [...]
:: Read on
So: everyone knows about the flow from early adopters to late adopters and if you haven’t read Gladwell’s The Cool Hunt from 1997 that details this whole progression just go read it, if anything for details about what was cool among NYC street kids in 1997. But here’s something I’ve been thinking about. I. Kanye [...]
By “agony” here I’m talking about mental anguish than can often manifest itself physically. I experience two chief ones when watching comedies. And by comedies I mean sitcoms. Type One: Gervaisian It began in The Office and it went through to Extras and then (or before?) it became the basis for the U.S. Office. Maybe [...]
Katie gave this to me to read and I’d expected light Klosterman fluff. Klosterman blurbed the book, for instance. Instead, I got a wonderfully smart book on the origins of nerddom that was incredibly researched without being bogged down by its incredible research. Nugent reads proto-nerds in Dr. Frankenstein, Austen’s Mary Bennett, and Forster’s Tibby [...]
The very cool blog, We Who Are About To Die just published a review of my Stamp Story with Mud Luscious Press, which asks writers to write a story in exactly 50 words. Or is it 50 words or fewer? And then prints these stories on a stamp. Mine’s an excerpt from the taxidermy book. [...]
:: Read on
I usually skip the Notebook, that essay that begins each issue of Harper’s, particularly when Lapham writes it. I don’t know why this is. I also usually avoid history. I’ve for so long distrusted its usefulness with respect to the present. And so imagine my surprise to read the following conclusion to what seems to [...]
