Y'know, if I thought that the Times would publish personal essays about embarrassing public puking incidents, I would have submitted about ten pieces a long time ago.
Once again, Sloane Crosley beats me to the (spiked) punch. Letting the Chips Fall
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
shortcuts
As I get older, and my years of hardcore television-watching start to catch up to me, I admit that my attention span is shot. If entertainment isn't broken down into manageable chunks, I whine and drag my feet like a third-grader faced with long division homework. So I've determined that short stories/essays are pretty much the ideal literary format. When magazines like The New Yorker make an extra effort to drop short fiction in my lap, I'm always thankful.
Their holiday fiction issue is especially strong this year, with stories from Alice Munro and Colson Whitehead. But my favorite was Another Manhattan by Donald Antrim. It starts out as a modern update on the kind of bantery, upper-class neuroticism that Woody Allen has practically trademarked in film (a little bit of covert spouse-swapping, and everyone seems to be a doctor or therapist of some kind). But then it turns darker, more serious, into a reflection on intense unhappiness among people who appear to have everything under control. The pacing is good, the nuances are there, and...it's short.
Of course, this fondness for brevity might not mean that I'm losing my attention span. It might just mean I'm turning into a Japanese teenager. The New Yorker also has an intriguing article about the latest literary fad to hit Japan: the cell phone novel. My first reaction was to scoff at the idea of full books written in text-message-speak, but the further I read in the article, the less absurd it seemed. Maybe teenage girls shouldn't be dismissed so easily--after all, they turned a lousy vampire book into a major phenomenon in about ten seconds flat. And after watching my own company scramble to figure out what kids want, what iPhone/Kindle users want, I don't think it will be long before you see oddly formatted books popping up here in the U.S. as well. Maybe this means I should start working on my Twitter-formatted memoir.
Their holiday fiction issue is especially strong this year, with stories from Alice Munro and Colson Whitehead. But my favorite was Another Manhattan by Donald Antrim. It starts out as a modern update on the kind of bantery, upper-class neuroticism that Woody Allen has practically trademarked in film (a little bit of covert spouse-swapping, and everyone seems to be a doctor or therapist of some kind). But then it turns darker, more serious, into a reflection on intense unhappiness among people who appear to have everything under control. The pacing is good, the nuances are there, and...it's short.
Of course, this fondness for brevity might not mean that I'm losing my attention span. It might just mean I'm turning into a Japanese teenager. The New Yorker also has an intriguing article about the latest literary fad to hit Japan: the cell phone novel. My first reaction was to scoff at the idea of full books written in text-message-speak, but the further I read in the article, the less absurd it seemed. Maybe teenage girls shouldn't be dismissed so easily--after all, they turned a lousy vampire book into a major phenomenon in about ten seconds flat. And after watching my own company scramble to figure out what kids want, what iPhone/Kindle users want, I don't think it will be long before you see oddly formatted books popping up here in the U.S. as well. Maybe this means I should start working on my Twitter-formatted memoir.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
poetry
So you're the President-elect. Your advisors say you need to pander to the people in the heartland who are half-convinced you're going to take your oath on the Koran, so you need a megachurch-foundin', Prop 8-supportin' pastor to show everyone how much you love Jesus. Check! Who's left to charm? Oh, yeah, those Hillary chicks. I know! Why don't you pick someone who writes about vaginas to deliver the poem? It worked for Clinton!
Monsieur Cuvier investigates
between my legs, poking, prodding,
sure of his hypothesis.
I half expect him to pull silk
scarves from inside me, paper poppies,
then a rabbit! He complains
at my scent and does not think
I comprehend, but I speak
There haven't been enough gynecological poems at presidential inaugurations. In all seriousness, though, while I'm ticked about the Rick Warren thing, I like what I've read of Elizabeth Alexander.
Giving birth is like jazz, something from silence,
then all of it. Long, elegant boats,
blood-boiling sunshine, human cargo,
a hand-made kite –
Post-partum.
No longer a celebrity, pregnant lady, expectant.
It has happened; you are here,
each dram you drain a step away
from flushed and floating, lush and curled.
Now you are the pink one, the movie star.
It has happened. You are here,
and you sing, mewl, holler, peep,
swallow the light and bubble it back,
shine, contain multitudes, gleam. You
are the new one, the movie star,
and birth is like jazz,
from silence and blood, silence
then everything,
jazz.
Plus, yay for a president who knows enough about modern poetry (hell, any poetry) to go with someone a little off the beaten path, but who also has a kickass resume. Also, I had no idea--or had forgotten the probable reference from The West Wing--that only Kennedy and Clinton had included poets in their ceremonies. Definitely a wasted opportunity for the others--who would Nixon have chosen?
Monsieur Cuvier investigates
between my legs, poking, prodding,
sure of his hypothesis.
I half expect him to pull silk
scarves from inside me, paper poppies,
then a rabbit! He complains
at my scent and does not think
I comprehend, but I speak
There haven't been enough gynecological poems at presidential inaugurations. In all seriousness, though, while I'm ticked about the Rick Warren thing, I like what I've read of Elizabeth Alexander.
Giving birth is like jazz, something from silence,
then all of it. Long, elegant boats,
blood-boiling sunshine, human cargo,
a hand-made kite –
Post-partum.
No longer a celebrity, pregnant lady, expectant.
It has happened; you are here,
each dram you drain a step away
from flushed and floating, lush and curled.
Now you are the pink one, the movie star.
It has happened. You are here,
and you sing, mewl, holler, peep,
swallow the light and bubble it back,
shine, contain multitudes, gleam. You
are the new one, the movie star,
and birth is like jazz,
from silence and blood, silence
then everything,
jazz.
Plus, yay for a president who knows enough about modern poetry (hell, any poetry) to go with someone a little off the beaten path, but who also has a kickass resume. Also, I had no idea--or had forgotten the probable reference from The West Wing--that only Kennedy and Clinton had included poets in their ceremonies. Definitely a wasted opportunity for the others--who would Nixon have chosen?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
the rest is noise
I think I have a crush on Alex Ross from the New Yorker. I always enjoyed his pieces in the magazine, but never really thought much about him beyond "pleasant subway reading." But then today, I was reading last week's piece on Leonard Bernstein, and just really loved his lush, descriptive language and style:
"To attend the Bernstein festival night after night was to watch this man’s sometimes desperate struggle to find the proper vessel for his talent. In a better world, these conflicts—between classical and popular traditions, between composing and conducting, between high-art institutions and radical politics, between gay and straight sexualities—would have mattered little. The spirit of the man, which had something primordial, almost animalistic, about it, overwhelmed all categories."
and
"The moment exemplifies Bernstein’s ability to render almost any abstract sequence of notes or chords as a physical act, a sweatily human gesture."
So bravo, Alex Ross. Way to pull ahead of Sasha Frere-Jones.
"To attend the Bernstein festival night after night was to watch this man’s sometimes desperate struggle to find the proper vessel for his talent. In a better world, these conflicts—between classical and popular traditions, between composing and conducting, between high-art institutions and radical politics, between gay and straight sexualities—would have mattered little. The spirit of the man, which had something primordial, almost animalistic, about it, overwhelmed all categories."
and
"The moment exemplifies Bernstein’s ability to render almost any abstract sequence of notes or chords as a physical act, a sweatily human gesture."
So bravo, Alex Ross. Way to pull ahead of Sasha Frere-Jones.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
it's retrospective season!
Good news, everyone! The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2008 is out, and I've actually read one of them! That's about the same as I was doing at this time last year, so yay for maintenance. (The numbers look, umm, less good if you take into account that I've read only two of the top 100 notable books of the year, but hey, who's counting? Chances are I'll get to Toni Morrison and Fareed Zakaria soon. Ish.)
Notably missing from both lists is The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell's latest book, which was pretty much eviscerated last week by Virginia Heffernan. What a sad Thanksgiving in the Vowell house.... Plus, this illustrates reason #46 not to piss off a TV critic in general, and a Times critic especially.
Notably missing from both lists is The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell's latest book, which was pretty much eviscerated last week by Virginia Heffernan. What a sad Thanksgiving in the Vowell house.... Plus, this illustrates reason #46 not to piss off a TV critic in general, and a Times critic especially.
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