Bookninja - Hearsay Archive April 2005

04/20/05:

The unheralded copyeditor -- or is that copy editor?
Someone lifts a rock and asks a few question of my pale, brooding kin before they burrow back into their manuscripts.

One needs to be fairly neurotic to copyedit -- you have to be willing to spend time worrying about whether something's a restrictive participle or a nonrestrictive one, and you actually have to care. Relatedly, it has to make a difference to you whether the name of the song is "I Want to Hold You Hand" or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

(From Bookslut) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Bookdroppings
Watch out -- I think you just stepped in some. Uh, gross. Lisa Richardson wipes her feet of Bookcrossing.com. (discuss) (posted by Kathryn)

Papalrazzi
Catholics everywhere fall for the biggest publicity stunt of the year. Joey Ratzinger vies for the papacy (and wins!!!) and within hours his books become bestsellers. Who needs Oprah when you have God and the hordes on your side? Excuse me, I have to find a confessional; I'm feeling so guilty about this post, I can't tell you. (discuss) (posted by Kathryn)

Everything's gonna be alright
Cedella Marley and Gerald Hausman publish a children's book about Bob Marley's early years: The Boy From Nine Miles: The Early Life of Bob Marley. (discuss) (posted by Kathryn)

Okay, so the kids are, like, ugly, which is realistic, right? So that's our premise, eh. Let's take it from there. Oh, and throw in a fedora for the dufus...
Canadian screenwriters at the Handicam Awards for excellence in crappy TV. (discuss) (Posted by George)

They're disdainful and rude out of love, man...
Is it more respectable to work in an independent bookstore? I'd say yes. But then, I just spent $100 at Book City yesterday on two books. Those sneaky independent clerks ignored me in circles until I was so flustered I just bought the first dense anthology of modern French poetry my hand landed on.

No matter how you paint the picture for strangers, retail work is not particularly rewarding. But there is a perception that independent stores do carry an inherent nobility. They are fighting the good fight against Big Corporate America, and retail clerks are the foot soldiers. We are on the side of quality products and customer care. We represent freedom of choice and giving back to the community. We call our manager by his or her first name, wear jeans to work, and recognize frequent customers. And we like to think we are infinitely happier than the corporate slaves in the chain store around the corner.

My two co-workers used to work at this chain bookstore. One, a woman in her mid-fifties, was in charge of ordering books for the adult retail department, but she quit when the higher-ups hassled her for ordering academic titles instead of Danielle Steele and John Grisham. My other co-worker, a man in his early twenties who manned the information desk, felt uncomfortable working in a bookstore where employees were forbidden to read the books and expected to stand for eight hours a day. (To ensure that employees were not tempted to rest, management took away all of the employees' chairs.)

(From Moby) (discuss) (Posted by George)

PEN authors say writing makes a difference
Well, they would, wouldn't they... (discuss) (Posted by George)

As the world burns...
A longer piece on the litblog coop effort. With people other than Mark Sarvas mentioned, too! If you follow the daytime blog operas, note the controversial remarks by Bookslut's saucy Jessa Crispin. Coupled with remarks by the story's author, they've got a few knickers in twists. I think they're being taken widely out of context and everyone needs to pop chill pills and remember there are important things to get angry about. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Your one-stop Sumerian poetry shop
I love the internet. (From Incoming Signals) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Too true
The effects of parenthood on performers. (discuss) (Posted by George)

04/21/05:

Never met a German who toasted tentatively
AND!!! Upset in Scotland as Rowlings takes a beating from Ratzinger. The dark arts can't even begin to compete with the heavenly, sweet, lyricism of pouffy clouds and forgiveness and the flutter of winged Angels. Ratzinger, it's Ratzinger to the goal. The crowd is booing; no. no! The crowd is speaking in tongues. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Not just any old spit
Jane Fonda endures tobacco spit at a recent booksigning. Next it'll be snuff. But what a trooper!

[Event sponsor] Jennings said Fonda received a standing ovation when she came out and when she finished speaking. She said the actor never got up from her seat and continued autographing books after the tobacco juice was wiped off.

Vietnam vet or ex-cowboy lover? Or both? (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
C.K Williams wins $100,000. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Foetry's Cordle tries desperately to patch things up
Is Cordle telling the truth about closing down the site or just saving face and trying to prop up the mess he's made for his wife? (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

04/22/05:

Novelists trade self-respect for sales
A list of 150 novelists have signed an open letter begging HRH Oprah to return to the world of book pimping. Oprah, straightening the purple feather in her white, wide-brimmed fedora, tapped her rhinestone-studded cane thoughtfully and said she'd "considamer the requestamatation." She then kicked the pleading novelists from her flared pantleg and told them to get "they's bitch-assed faces back on the street" before she really gets angry.

Authors complain that with publishers and bookstores consolidating, there are fewer avenues for new authors to break through. Winfrey's book club, they argue, was one of the few developments to bring people back to bookstores in a decade that has seen a steady decline in sales of literary fiction.

I feel sorry for the novelists. They're so desperate and grubby. People, once you give up on sales and money-making, it's really easy to say fuck it to anything but your art. Ask your poet friend. But call him at his day job. (Um, anybody want to venture some analysis on the estrogen to testosterone ratio in this list?) (discuss) (Posted by George)

And in what's likely related news
Anne Rice is selling some property. Included in the sale will be a walk-in closet full of black candles, an unpublished manuscript titled "Lestat Goes Bananas", the half-consumed corpse of V.C. Andrews, and her son Christopher, who has been a larger disappointment than her last ten books. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Bonk bonk on the head
Journalist phones it in on the seal hunt and gets clubbed. Shades of Jayson Blair. ... ... Who? (discuss) (Posted by George)

The Infinite Library
Sounds like the place Pete will go when he dies. Heaven and Hell both. (Heaven cause of the books, Hell cause of the stern librarians... or is that the other way around?)

The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in England is the only place you are likely to find an Ethernet port that looks like a book. Built into the ancient bookcases dominating the oldest wing of the 402-year-old library, the brown plastic ports share shelf space with handwritten catalogues of the university’s medieval manuscripts and other materials. Some of the volumes are still chained to the shelves, a 17th-century innovation designed to discourage borrowing. But thanks to the Ethernet ports and the university’s effort to digitize irreplaceable books like the catalogues—which often contain the only clue to locating an obscure book or manuscript elsewhere in the vast library—users of the Bodleian don’t even need to take the books off the shelves. They can simply plug in their laptops, connect to the Internet, and view the pertinent pages online. In fact, anyone with a Web browser can read the catalogues, a privilege once restricted to those fortunate enough to be teaching or studying at Oxford.

(From Bookslut) (discuss) (Posted by George)

It's like getting screwed at the drive thru... once you're gone, you can't really do anything about it...
Perhaps A Death in the Family isn't what it would have been, had there been no death... in the family. Like I always say: once you're dead, you're so fucked. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Finally, someone does public poetry right...
After last year's episode of Canadian poets being turned into street mimes, I read this and realize, it can be done right. It just needs to have no self-interest involved; something foreign to so many of the poets who'd be drawn to this kind of public spectacle.

He writes them as well. But McIlvoy — who calls himself Mack — never reads his own work. Instead, on an average day, he'll read 40 poems by contemporary stylists such as John Updike, Billy Collins, Rebecca Bagget and Heather McHugh.

McIlvoy is no poetry jukebox. He reads poems he likes. Sometimes he'll even offer to feed a listener's parking meter to win a few more moments. He takes the occasional request, like from the woman who asks: "Hey, you got something to do with wisdom? I need a wisdom fix."

There's no artistic pretense to McIlvoy's poetry performances — no pseudo-beatnik berets or bohemian dress. He drives a decidedly un-hip white Oldsmobile with Illinois plates his grandmother willed him. He wears Oxford shirts, and his hair is cut schoolboy short. Many people assume he's a missionary.

Okay, it's a maudlin public interest piece and he'll never read one of my poems (see his criteria for making the list), but I love him for doing it, the little kipper. (discuss) (Posted by George)

The mother load!
Essential Fonts for Designers. I'd hoard it for myself, but Pete would smother me in my sleep (he already steals all the blankets...) (From Incoming Signals) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Weekend Edition:

Wouldn't it be nice?
Marjane Satrapi wants all the secular people to live in their own country (Salon link). I think this would be a nice idea. Right up until the crazy fundys invaded us and nailed us to Clear Channel billboards to spead their message of love.

If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Aimee Bender talks about her penis
And writing and language and blah blah blah.

I don't think it's penis envy, really, as much as some strange identification with men at a given moment. There's something aggressive about writing to me, and women can be aggressive, of course, but sometimes I do associate that quality more with men and then voila! The characters have penises.

That's what happened to me! (From the Rake) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

The fine art of Chinese calligraphy
OK, I can't even remember how to write with a pen, let alone do this.

It has been said that to really appreciate something one must take part in it, a maxim Mr. Yu staunchly believes. As a highly acclaimed calligrapher, he has spent years teaching students this traditional art form in his home-turned-studio, and maintains that in addition to its inherent beauty, calligraphy stimulates abstract and spatial thinking, instills a sense of discipline and cultivates refinement in both a moral and intellectual sense.

Well, that explains it then. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

I had a dream
George Saunders reflects on his start as a writer and his relationship with stories. There's also something about theme parks....

Because there are several different levels of the imagination. There's "I am now imagining a hippo jumping over a house"; that's kind of crazy. But if you stick with that image, and then start working on it day after day after day, suddenly things sprout that you couldn't ever have imagined at the beginning. The story is in a sense an answer to itself; it's talking back to you all the time.

(From the Rake) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

04/25/05:

When are Canadian readers going to readathon Sam Slick?
The Spanish read Don Quixote in relay for 48 hours non-stop.

Some participants read in other languages than Spanish to emphasise the universal appeal of “Don Quixote”. Excerpts were read in Latin, Arabic, Hebrew and Greek as well as 18 languages spoken in the European Union.

Blind readers used editions in braille to take part.

This just sounds so exciting; can you imagine Canadians getting it up for a marathon of reading? I want this, I really do. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Nancy Drew's tits just got pointier
I wish they made bras like this for real; then we could all be super sleuths and Wonderwomen. Nancy goes Manga with the new and not yet available at Amazon.ca The Demon of River Heights.

Also getting a makeover: The Hardy Boys. Frank and Joe are starring in their own new graphic novel series from Papercutz, starting with "The Hardy Boys: The Ocean of Osyria," also in stores.

Unfortunately the earnest fellows will not be wearing tights. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Taking matters into your own hands
Self-publishing can be good or bad, depending. Hm. Sounds like not self-publishing.

The difference between traditional vanity presses and modern print-on-demand publishing is essentially technology. Instead of expensive offset printing, which mainstream publishers use, print-on-demand relies on a glorified digital printer. The top three self-publishers -- AuthorHouse, iUniverse and Xlibris, based in Philadelphia -- all use the technology, and introduced a total of 11,906 new titles last year, according to R. R. Bowker's Books in Print database. By contrast, one of the few remaining old-style vanity presses, the 56-year-old Vantage Press in New York, produces between 300 and 600 titles a year.

Meanwhile, for as little as $459, iUniverse will turn a manuscript into a paperback with a custom cover design, provide an International Standard Book Number -- publishing's equivalent of an ID number to place the book in a central bibliographic database -- and make it available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and other online retailers. (Vantage charges anywhere from $8,000 to $50,000 for a limited quantity of copies, some owned by the author and the rest warehoused by Vantage.)
...
Unfortunately, aspiring writers eager to believe that a publisher has chosen them can also be led astray. Last year more than 130 writers petitioned the attorney general of Maryland and other government agencies to investigate PublishAmerica, a print-on-demand company in Frederick, Md., which describes itself as a ''traditional publishing company'' on its Web site.

The authors say they were duped when they signed contracts with the company, because it is actually a vanity press. In press accounts and in promotions to its writers, the company has maintained that it is highly selective. But Dee Power, an Arizona writer in the forefront of the petition campaign, questions that claim. She says PublishAmerica accepted a bogus manuscript from her that repeated the same 10 pages eight times and changed the main characters' names halfway through. She and other writers say they were shocked by the sloppy editing of their manuscripts and falsely led to believe that stores would stock their books. (The government agencies have so far declined to investigate.)

(discuss) (Posted by George)

Examining the Oprah backlist
Here's an interesting piece in which someone reads all 43 Oprah-blessed titles and does some analysis on why there's such disdain for the bookclub.

Rooney notes the vast majority of the titles won favorable reviews when they were released. Of the 43 fiction titles, 31 received reviews in the New York Times Book Review - all but six positive. It was only after Oprah chose them that they came under attack.

And hand it to Rooney for not being willing to take the books' quality on faith. She read all 43, except for five she pronounces "unreadable." Five more she found "plain awful" but compelling enough to complete. The rest were good, she writes, even great.

So why did the books come under so much criticism? The question goes to the core of our perceptions about culture and art. Oprah, Rooney posits, found herself caught in an ongoing unease in America between highbrow and lowbrow culture generally summed up as: If a huge number of people appreciate something, can it really be art?

As much as I use Oprah as a rubber chicken around here, I've coincidentally read several of the titles on her list and loved every one I've read. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Chicago: writers' town
Chicago newspaper highlights Chicago. And just in time, too. Dr Von Moribund! Halt the DestructoRay's countdown and reposition. Coordinates: Boise, Idaho. (discuss) (Posted by George)

George Bowering not prolific? Are we thinking of the same guy?
Has the world gone topsy-turvy?? I'm having trouble breathing here, people... Somebody catch me if I faint dead away.

Canada's first parliamentary poet was no Shakespeare -- he penned only two poems during his two-year stint. George Bowering was paid $12,000 plus a $10,000 travel allowance each year to write poems and promote the art of verse. He finished his two-year mandate as poet laureate late last year with 87 lines under his belt.

(Actually, didn't he have a terrible accident during that time? I seem to remember something about him breaking both his legs or something. That would put a damper on your output. Hell, if I'm having a bad hair day I can't get anything done...) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Why is Jorie Graham so damn popular?
The dreamy David Orr asks how one gets "made" in the world of poetry.

In this uncertain atmosphere, Graham is a uniter, not a divider. For one thing, she's nice. In interviews, Graham comes off as kindhearted and eager to praise -- the sort of person you'd want as a colleague or mentor. She has friendly words for avant-gardists like Susan Howe; friendly words for formalists like Anthony Hecht; and friendly words for her tribe of former students (''I love all of them,'' she says, and it must be true, because they show up with remarkable frequency as winners of the many contests she judges). Moreover, as Shelley might say, if Graham fell upon the thorns of life, she'd blurb. A typical Graham book plug is so rhapsodic and inscrutable (one blurbee has ''an ear so finely tuned it cannot but register all the finest, filamentary truths the eye discerns'') that it practically yodels Poooeeetrrry! Which doesn't mean she's insincere. As Graham puts it, ''There are very few poets whose work doesn't, someplace in its enterprise, stun me.'' Poooeeetrrry!

(discuss) (Posted by George)

Cult of Supermen
A roundup of comic book heroes. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... The Patriarchy!
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Dowry...

A study of both parents of primary school children and women who have been involved in domestic abuse claims than those who grew up reading fairy tales are likely to be more submissive as adults.

Mind you, I've tried to change my share of bad girls, and I can tell you from experience, they just don't get any badder, no matter how hard you try. (discuss) (Posted by George)

British schools giving up classics
Old people plotzing. (discuss) (Posted by George)

I am so going to ~~eat~~ read this
And I say that in the tone of voice I used as I sat for a moment before my plate of saffron rice, butter chicken and sag paneer tonight. Yum.

In the same vein, Ishiguro’s new book, Never Let Me Go, is narrated by Kathy H., a young woman looking back on her life at an idyllic English prep school called Hailsham. Set in the recent past, it is equal parts elegy, detective story and, in some respects, dystopic teen novel. Slowly, we learn that the special, almost elitist upbringing shared by Kathy and her two closest friends — two other points in a love triangle — was perhaps a simulacrum of life. (Warning: it is difficult to discuss this book in any depth without revealing a half-cloaked plot secret, so if you fear spoilers, don’t read on.) Kathy and her parentless peers are “donors ” (Ishiguro’s word) or “clones” (anyone else’s). Bred to save the rest of us by handing over their organs and dying young, they are an abstract debate made flesh.

(discuss) (Posted by George)

Shakespeare a fake
You can tell by the moustache. Only a total poseur would wear a lip broom like that. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Crime writers awards
Short list announced. Personally, I'm waiting for the "It's a Crime They're Writers Awards"... And the nominees are... (discuss) (Posted by George)

Nation's bullies miss chance to tilt gene pool back in their favour...
Star Wars convention draws thousands of like-minded nerds. Fortunately, a concurrent nearby convention of lantern-jawed morons with violent self-esteem issues was kept behind just long enough for the herd-o-nerds to escape to their landspeeders. (discuss) (Posted by George)

04/26/05:

New in letters
George Bowering's tenure as Poet Laureate defended. (discuss) (Posted by George)

The Guantanamo Bay poet is released
So it is true; the truth will set you free. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost helped his fellow prisoners in Cuba by writing poetry on papercups and handing it around. Falsely accused, and now four years later released, Dost has only one request -- that US authorities return his work.

At first, deprived of paper and pen, Dost memorized his best lines or scribbled them secretly on paper cups. Later, he was supplied with writing materials and made up for lost time by producing reams of poems and essays -- only to have all but a few of the documents confiscated by the U.S. government upon his release.

"Why did they give me a pen and paper if they were planning to do that?" Dost asked last week with evident anguish. "Each word was like a child to me -- irreplaceable."

(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Literacy in the Arab world
A polemic article on education in the Arab countries; it's all a little frightening, folks:

Sadly, the bottom spot of the literacy rate, according to the EFA report 2003-4 was reserved for no other than Iraq, a country that was once recognised for being a Third World model of development. Along with Cuba, Iraq once offered universal education and health coverage. Now, following 15 years tainted by crippling sanctions, unjustified and bloody war, and a self-consumed and brutal occupation only 39.3 per cent of Iraqis can read.

What's the statistical figure measuring poverty against anger I wonder? (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Move over, Oprah
The Afro Puff Girls Book Club is way cool.

Twelve young ladies (ages six to eleven) of the prestigious Afro Puff Girls Book Club expressed with excitement how the Princess Briana fairytale (bestselling children’s book of 2004 at Karibu, a major black bookstore chain) inspired them to read and improved their self-esteem. The very mission of the book club is to select books that entertain, enlighten and plant seeds of wisdom, which is exactly what Princess Briana did for these ladies. The fairytale teaches several valuable lessons about self-love and acceptance. The coordinator of the book club, Tracey Ward, said, “When we first got Princess Briana, they were so excited and most of them read it that same day. Last year when we started the book club it took them forever to read the chosen book and it was a really cool book. However with Princess Briana, they loved the pictures and they loved the storyline.”

(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Montreal world book capital this year
This following a very successful year as Capital City of Unfiltered Smoke Blown in the Faces of Non-Smokers. Montreal: a city on the... grow...? (discuss) (Posted by George)

Salman waxing lyrical on books
He's getting soft.

To hate a book is only to confirm to oneself what one already knows, or thinks one knows. But the power of books to inspire both love and hate is an indication of their ability to make alterations in the fabric of what is.

(discuss) (Posted by George)

Early Ginsberg recording donated
What might be the first recording of Ginsberg reading Howl has been donated to a university. Modern editing techniques have allowed curators to remove the sound of Ginsberg's hair growing from the tracks, making the entire product two and half minutes shorter. (discuss) (Posted by George)

E-pistolary
I'm pretty sure I coined that term a few years back. I also invented the comma, light on sunflowers, and the word "wholphin".

Both e-pistolary and epistolary novels reflect a shift in the culture -- new technology for e-mail books, an increase in literacy, and by extension letter writing, during the 18th century. And interestingly, two of the greatest epistolary novels, Pamela (1740), the very first example, and Clarissa (1748) both written by Samuel Richardson, concern the romantic and sexual lives of a young heroine -- much like modern e-pistolary books.

Susan Swan's Stupid Boys Are Good to Relax With did this years ago. Years! (discuss) (Posted by George)

Golems and trolls and spectres of the past
Dennis Loy Johnson of Mobylives rolls up his sleeves and does some of his trademark digging to get the other side of the Michael Chabon / Paul Maliszewski Holocaust affair. Compelling stuff. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Thrown on the fire
Good books endangered in Britain?

Today's corporate weather-makers hate "book-lovers", as they sneeringly refer to them. They despise curious readers committed to the range and quality of what they buy, such as those who bother with books coverage in intelligent magazines or newspapers such as this. Instead, extra resources will now go into snaring the fitful attention of affluent but apathetic semi-readers who, deep down, believe that, in the deathless words of Philip Larkin's "A Study of Reading Habits", "Books are a load of crap." Ah, but those non-readers made an exception for The Da Vinci Code. So let's have much more of the same brain-shrinking junk. What was it that Bradbury's firemen burnt? Good books, of course.

It appears the "alarm" in alarmism comes in stereo. Both left and right use it quite well. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Intimate portraits
Your favourite superheroes are keeping blogs. Who wouldn't want to know about what Aquaman is thinking?

Aquaman here, nothing much to write about. Been doing some light reading, i will say the weather has been quite amazing.

My Blog has been visited by Dr henry mccoy of the X men. I Must say I have enjoyed your work and have linked you to my page. it just goes to show you that Dc and Marvel people can cohabitate with each other without getting nasty.

So take that Sub Mariner.

I'm waiting for Storm's punk days blog. Brrrowr. (Some very fun commentary on the blog form here.) (discuss) (Posted by George)

04/27/05:

Empowering Bowering
The letters defending former poet laureate George Bowering from accusations of ... stuff... continue to come in. Poet John Degen (one of my personal favourites) writes in questioning comments made by MP Pat Martin. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Atwood finding Atwood
Margaret Atwood reminisces about her early days on the European youth trail.

Fleeing a personal life of Gordian complexity, and leaving behind a poetry manuscript rejected by all, and a first novel ditto, I scraped together what was left after a winter of living in a Charles Street rooming-house and writing tours-de-force of undiscovered genius while working by day at a market research company, borrowed $600 from my parents, who were understandably somewhat nervous about my choice of the literary life by then, and climbed onto a plane.

(From Maud) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Reagan's memoirs
How ironic. Apparently the first pages are doodles of guys farting little clouds, poorly drawn likenesses of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and what might limericks about GHW Bush's retarded son. The last pages are much more interesting and tasteful. (discuss) (Posted by George)

AS Byatt
Profiled in the Toronto Star. (discuss) (Posted by George)

"Poet" banned from class
And not just for writing a terrible poem. Apparently the professor is taking what he's written as a serious threat to the welfare of her family.

The student, Edward Bolles, said his poem entitled "Professor White," was meant to be a satirical piece about globalization. In it, a Mexican student named Juan has a sexual encounter with the daughter of his white professor.

Bolles' professor, Kelly Ritter, found the poem "disturbing," according to an April 8 campus police report, and said she believed the poem was a threat. University officials prohibited Bolles, who is Mexican, from attending his poetry class while he was investigated.

I don't know how I feel about this. With their history of arguing in class and the content, it seems there is some sort of purposeful coincidence of creativity and reality there. Why this metaphor and why now? Whether or not he realizes it, is he making comment on the individual relationship as well as the political one? I don't know. (From Moby) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees author profiled (buzzing for her new book The Mermaid Chair). (discuss) (Posted by George)

The first thirds of great literature
They slay me every time. My dream job is to work for them. Oh, and what I'm doing now. I love it.

Malcolm Seward is a 38-year-old commercial kitchen designer, baseball fan, and avid supporter of public radio, but he said there's nothing he likes better than hunkering down in a comfortable chair, cracking open a brand-new copy of one of the world's literary classics, and reading the first 100 pages or so.

And of course there's: "National Poetry Month Raises Awareness Of Poetry Prevention". I'm a natural for the position, don't you think? (discuss) (Posted by George)

04/28/05:

Bookninja in the news: You think it's a time sink for you??
A nice CBC article examining the allure of litblogs that provide a sense of community to often isolated misanthropes who might otherwise resort to Peeping Tomism to feel a connection to other humans.

Bookninja began as a way for friends across the country to stay in touch, share links to articles of common interest, tease one another, etc., but rather quickly it became much more than that. George Murray, a Toronto-based poet who, with Vancouver novelist Peter Darbyshire, started the blog in August 2003, says that they now attract somewhere between 700 and 1,000 users every weekday, maxing out at upwards of 2,000 people on days one of the 'Ninja contributors appears in the media. Considering the fact that many small magazines would kill for that many readers in a month, it’s an enormous accomplishment. And almost all of it is done on a volunteer basis: the two original bloggers, plus newcomer Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, contribute for free; they pay reviewers and essayists. But the really amazing thing is that despite catering to a population for whom solitude is a job requirement, they’ve managed to create a community.

I love you guys. I really do. Here. Here's a cyber noogie. Rub yerself on the noggin once for me. Okay, twice. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Choy wins Trillium
The winners announced. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Toronto's trodden-upon poetry
Remember that announcement that they planned to stamp poetry into the concrete in Toronto, god bless their souls? Well, now someone has unleashed upon the world the inner poet of 15 city councillors. I shudder, with both appreciative laughter and the teensiest hint of revulsion. I usually feel that way when inner poets become outer poets.

Downtown
The heartbeat of our city
Pulse in time the steps of urban dwellers
Keep communities alive.
- Olivia Chow, Trinity-Spadina

Hey! That's pretty good! Some of them, like Olivia (my favourite councillor), seem to have actually tried too! Good on ya! (discuss) (Posted by George)

B.C.: "the literary Madagascar"
Apparently B.C.'s relative isolation from centres of literary power have allowed it to develop a unique and independent publishing culture. How about "the literary kangaroo" or "the literary platypus"? (discuss) (Posted by George)

Are bookstores killing America's literary future?
Very good essay on the damage the bookstore chain is causing in the literary world.

The nature of this crisis is actually fairly simple. Writers can only publish what book publishers are willing to buy from them. And book publishers, in turn, can only publish what bookstores are willing to buy. In the past, there were literally thousands of independent bookstores across the country, each deciding for itself which books to buy from publishers. A large number of these stores, in fact, were dedicated to selling the works of emerging writers, to taking a chance on an unknown name. Thus, there was a market for a great variety of literature.

Today, however, the landscape has changed. Three bookstore chains control three-fourths of all book sales. Each of these chains has only one or two people in charge of buying books from publishers. Instead of thousands of independent buyers looking for books, there are now only five book purchasers who determine which books are sold in the vast majority of the nation’s bookstores. Publishers who cannot sell to these five buyers are now more than ever finding themselves in financial dire straits. And thus, writers who are trying to express a vision that doesn’t appeal to these buyers are finding themselves without publishers. The rise of book superstores, in short, has threatened the literary life of our country. In a world where publishers are being forced to determine the worth of a book by the number of copies it can sell instead of its inherent merit, the outlets for authors of serious literature are dwindling. As the type of books being bought by bookstores (and thus the type of books that get published) become more and more based on mass-market appeal, literary innovation will inevitably decline.

(Thanks, Dan) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Runaway train
Interview with our bloggie grandparents, Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Meirans of MobyLives and Melville House Books fame. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Translation: good idea
A new effort to highlight works in translation seems long overdue.

In an innovative effort to raise the visibility of literature in translation, two nonprofit literary presses and a small indie house have formed an alliance with two corporate imprints to coordinate a special promotional display called Reading the World, which launches May 1 at about 80 independent bookstores.

Each participating store will display a total of 10 works in translation—two each from Dalkey Archive Press, Archipelago Books, New Directions, FSG and Knopf/Pantheon—and will stock about five copies of each title. Posters with an image donated by children's illustrator Peter Sís and brochures produced and paid for by the publishers also support the effort, which will run for all of May, dubbed World in Translation Month by the writer's organization PEN.

More on translation here. (First link submitted by "Jannytann", second link from PFW) (discuss) (Posted by George)

National poetry month at Slate
A rundown of the Slate poetry articles. (From PFW) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Slang, yo
Maud points us to several neato slang links. I just wish I'd thought of "Kung Fu Monkey". (discuss) (Posted by George)

04/29/05:

Christ on a stick
Well, on a whole family tree actually. Apparently, some 17th century layman researched Jesus's genealogy and compiled an extensive manuscript about it. What I find weird is that no one is considering that Mr. Spenser might have been a crazed, narcissistic, religious fanatic. But then, I guess that makes sense from the auctioneer's perspective. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

All of life's a stage
New book by Guantanamo Bay translator (Inside the Wire by Sgt. Erik Saar) details the length to which US security went to stage interrogational hoaxes. This is America imitating Hollywood imitating America at its best and simultaneously at its very very worst.

Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has led the legal challenge of detainees' imprisonment and alleged abusive interrogation techniques, said Saar's claims support lawyers' suspicions that the official tours of Guantanamo were phony.

"They couldn't show people what they were really doing, because what they were really doing was illegal and inhumane," Ratner said. "It's such a fraud. It reminds me of the special concentration camps set up in World War II. They would take the Red Cross there to see there was an orchestra and all sorts of nice things."

(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Writer, publisher, interior decorator?
Barry Callaghan and Claire Weissman Wilks edit Morley in their Rosedale digs.

As for most of his father's stuff, Mr. Callaghan has done something very unusual. He took his father's old study (where he long wrote, at more of a radiator cover than a proper desk) and filled it with his parents' family and professional remembrances. He added dark floral retro wallpaper, a striking red Venetian chandelier, and hung the portraits of Morley and Loretta taken in Paris and here at home on the same porch that Mr. Callaghan and Ms. Weissman Wilks love so much today...

"When I first finished this room," says Mr. Callaghan, "someone came in and said, 'Wow, a shrine; your life must be really overwhelmed by Morley.' I said, 'No, you're missing the point, I've banished him to here.'

(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Steve Jobs: iKnob
Apple, as part of their new campaign to compete with Microsoft, continue to be major dickheads. I wish someone would ban my book. It's trash, I tell you! Think of the children! The only honourable thing to do here is to ban my book and make me a millionaire. (discuss) (Posted by George)

The Poetry Sweatshop
Znaimer + poetry = what? Greasy poetry? (discuss) (Posted by George)

The unthinkable has happened
We are running out of Shakespeare. High school students everywhere fall to the earth, apoplectic with glee. (From Bookslut) (discuss) (Posted by George)

The Literary Map of Manhattan
At last, a map I can understand!

I began thinking about this map years ago while reading Don DeLillo's ''Great Jones Street.'' Bucky Wunderlick gazes out the window of his ''small crowded room'' at the firehouse across the street. I realized: there's only one firehouse on that street and few buildings that contain tiny apartments rather than commercial lofts. I know where Bucky Wunderlick lives. Or would live if he existed. He's got to be at No. 35. Knowing this made walking around the neighborhood like walking through the novel. But I walked without a map. Shouldn't there be a map of imaginary New Yorkers?

A rent-controlled apartment goes to the first person who pinpoints Bartleby's address. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Is the Web killing newspapers?
Or is it making them stronger?

Nowadays, news consumers have an almost unlimited choice. They don't sit down with a newspaper for an hour to read it cover to cover. Instead, they bounce from site to site, story to story, link to link, customizing their newsgathering experience, clicking on whatever stories from whatever publications appeal to them. They don't stick around long, but they do visit. It may be difficult for newspapers to figure out how to make money on them, but that doesn't mean that consumers don't find the product appealing. People haven't been abandoning newspapers (and magazines). They have been abandoning the print medium.

So it's just killing layout people like me. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Hey, it worked for Harlequin
When I was younger, I worked the night shift at a grocery store. Like the rest of my co-workers, I ate a lot of food for free -- this is why I always test the seals on pickle jars before I buy them. This worked out well, because I was always broke from buying books -- unlike my co-workers. Imagine how much easier life would have been if that grocery store had also sold books.

Supermarkets, long the domain of paperback romances, pulp thrillers and astrology guides, are the new frontier of book selling. Chains like Wegmans, Kroger and Albertsons have greatly expanded their book sections, adapting the techniques that move large amounts of Velveeta and Count Chocula and applying them to Nora Roberts and John Grisham.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Weekend Edition:

Dial-a-Poem
If they'd only changed two letters, they could have made a fortune.

It's 1969; the phone is the medium and the poem is the message. Dial-A-Poem is brand-new. You pick up your phone, dial (212) 628-0400 and hear one of a dozen recorded poems by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Joe Brainard, Anne Waldman, John Cage or who knows who. The next day there's a fresh dozen. Some are dirty. Some are radical. A lot are about guns. Some really aren't poems at all but songs or rants or sermons.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Fan covers
Chuck Palahniuk's fans keep sending in their own versions of covers to his books. Some of them are damned good, including the ones for his new book, Haunted, which isn't even out yet.

"People have been sending me covers they've done for art school projects since about 1999," Palahniuk says. "I'm really impressed with the quality of the work.

"This is the first generation that has grown up with these incredible tools," he says, referring to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, design software once available only to professionals.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)