Jeff Remarks

Book Review: Kornel Esti by Dezso Kosztolányi

2012-02-01T10:05:00.003-06:00

Apparently, I wrote this for the Review of Contemporary Fiction.

More Street View

2011-11-22T17:11:00.002-06:00

Photos from Google StreetView

2011-11-06T20:30:00.006-06:00

Hello, friends. I have just discovered the internet and I would love to tell you about some of its most interesting features. Allow me to hint, for example, the insane high of mindlessly bidding on eBay auctions, hoping all the while that your compulsion to win will not result in an actual win. Competing is free, but winning will cost you. Dearly.

Another thing the internet will cost you is time. Time spent watching teenagers on YouTube do ukulele covers of your favorite songs. Time spent reading the comments on every YouTube video. Time spent deciding whether a cover of What I Got by Sublime is worth one of my coveted "Thumbs up."

And time spent traveling through the south side of Chicago via Google StreetView. And taking screen captures. Because that's how I get around.

This is definitely where I am from

2011-11-02T11:04:00.001-05:00

Suspicious Person
Occurred 5:30pm on 11/1
Highland Grove Drive and West Fabish Drive
Complainant reported a subject in a white mask dancing at the intersection. Officers located a subject that was performing his pantomime. He was advised that some residents apparently find mimes disconcerting and he agreed to go home.

via the Buffalo Grove Police Blotter

how I spent my summer vacation

2011-09-22T17:50:00.003-05:00

Jonas Salk and James K. Polk stalk elk to make caulk and milk worms to make silk. Salk charms folk with slick talk to bilk the folk who buy silk and caulk, but Polk will balk when faced with bilking folk. He’d prefer to use oil and yolk to make mayonnaise in bulk for hulking folk like Peter Falk.

All day, Falk and his ilk skulk about, sipping mayo like milk just to add to their bulk, and looking for talc with which to make chalk. All Falk needs to make chalk is talc, and Falk gets the bulk of his talc on the boardwalk. And Mr. Polk sulks with caulk, silk, and Salk because Falk has no use for worm silk or elk caulk and even less use for a sulky balky Polk and a slick-talking Salk. All Falk needs is talc for his chalk and oil with yolk for his mayo in bulk.

And he has those things.

I wrote this

2011-09-08T17:13:00.009-05:00

I wrote this piece about William Gibson for the Chicago Humanities Festival blog. I mentioned it on Facebook, mine and the bookstore's, and I sent it to my mom, and so on. But William Gibson tweeted it and now hundreds of people have read it. Ok.

Umberto Eco, ostensibly the subject of another more self-absorbed blog I wrote for CHF, must not be on Twitter.

If he were, I would be pure famous.

In other news, I was at this book party last month. You would have loved it, maybe. You totally should have gone.

by the way

2011-08-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

I am not free

2011-08-08T19:58:00.001-05:00

I picked up a day planner from the bookstore today because I have a sense that I will have things to do soon. Currently, nothing is written in my day planner, but that doesn't mean I am free.

I am definitely not free on Saturday, February 11th because, in my planner, there is no Saturday, February 11th. On the next page, there's no Wednesday, February 15th; I won't be making appointments or taking meetings that day, either. The same goes for February 29th.

The day planner was free--of charge, anyway--because there are a few days missing, torn out by some thoughtful customer.

I am not free. Not on those days, and not on any others.

What passes for a movie review in this day and age

2011-08-07T11:59:00.007-05:00

I don't know if THE FUTURE is a good movie or a bad one. I try to judge that sort of thing against whatever I perceive the filmmaker—or author, or playwright—intended against what I actually experienced. But I'm a simple viewer, and if I don't feel like I understand a film—or, in fact, FILM as a medium-- I can't be equipped to judge it. I have no idea what Miranda July might have been trying to do or why. From the opening voiceover by a dead cat to the overexposed closing by the same dead cat, I was terribly affected by a hollow hopelessness, a sense that, as affected as July is or chooses to be, THE FUTURE was one of the darkest, least redemptive movies I have ever seen. Between the consciously too-cute exchanges by her leads, July's characters turn away, over and over again, from anything like redemption. They sleepwalk into filthy relationships, they bathe children, they dance inside too-symbolic t-shirts, and they argue with the moon. They vaguely pursue satisfaction without ever achieving it, without ever even identifying what would satisfy them, and the story grows dense with unrealistic and unrealized aspiration, and with incoherent longing, and with half-hearted movement. For me, this was nauseatingly real and it left me completely subdued, unable even to laugh at the dead cat, unable to laugh at the awkward sex, unable to laugh at the Lollapalooza crowds I saw on the way home. I just felt kind of sick.

It's possible that I've never written a review of a film before, and it's certain that I've usually preferred not to comment on movies beyond whether or not I liked them, or found them funny, or whether or not they made me cry. It's possible that July wanted me to be sick, in which case, bravo, I guess. I don't really understand filmmaking, and I only intermittently understand what is good, and what makes a thing good. Today, though, it seems to me that a movie can have varying levels of depth, and the unfortunate analogy I came up with on my bus ride home from the movie was that of knitting. I know next to nothing about knitting, but bear with me, if only because you already have.

It seems to me that knitting can be tight or loose and that a movie can also be either tight or loose. A filmmaker can present a complete image of a world, a tightly-knit experience on the screen that is complete in itself. Or, in silence and by using a sort of cinematic negative space, a filmmaker can create a loose-knit sort of film through which the viewer can glimpse in what might be a mirror what could be their own experience--or what might be the world outside the theatre. It might be the difference in evoking an emotion, in plucking whatever emotional strings might be there to pluck, and in allowing a person to feel something about what they've seen. I don't know which is more manipulative, but I'm confident in which is more devastating. What Ms. July—that sounds oddly like a centerfold; I take back the "Ms."—has done is she's created a hazy and centerless web of story, a knit that might have been made only for her, that is loose around the middle, and tight at all of the edges.

New Sestina

2011-04-14T22:05:00.006-05:00

It's no secret that I'm a sympathetic soul. It's no secret that I troll white-power message boards and try to piece together the tiny (hate-filled) dramas of their lives. It doesn't make me feel better about being hated, but it helps me love the them, the haters, in a kind of patronizing way that the white nationalists would probably prefer not to know about. They are lost, like most of the rest of us, and grasping.

Also, they're good for a sestina.

I knew a man who looked at his life,
and didn’t like the crummy future in front of him.
18-years-old and already working for his dad.
His dad was a stern man,
and the work was hard carny work
that wore the body out young.

An 18-year-old is young,
but old enough to want more from life--
old enough to want good work.
He knew the air force would be good to him
and that it would make him a man,
a better one than his dad.

And so, without a word to his dad,
who was no longer young,
the boy went and became a man,
and learned skills that would take him far in life.
Or at least far from home--which was fine with him.
After all, aircraft repair is good work.

And that’s the only way it was going to work,
the only thing that could keep him from becoming his dad,
and save himself from that crummy future he saw ahead of him.
The air force doesn’t care if you’re young,
or where you come from in life.
All they need is a man.

And what they got was a man:
a man who could do all kinds of work,
and who was ready to give his life,
(anything to escape his dad)
a man who wasn’t too young.
What they got was him.

I don’t often think about him,
as a boy or as a man.
I only remember him as young,
dirt-poor, but willing, happy to work,
and his poor old dad,
who worked as a carny for the rest of his life.

My friend's young brothers didn’t follow him
they got work, sometimes, but it wasn’t fit for a man
But that’s life, and who wants to be their dad?

Alley Sextina

2011-04-01T00:51:00.007-05:00

Dana Snitz sent me this missed connection (captured oddly small for posterity): http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/mis/2296468745.html

So I wrote this sestina:

I was taking the trash out when I noticed you
having sex with some gentile man.
I was shocked at your beauty--
your cute nose and brown hair and your wink--
I was more shocked when you came
in that alley behind Starbucks.

I want to see you again, but not behind Starbucks.
I will be good to you; I feel I can treat you
better anyway than that man (though you came).
He didn't seem an entirely nice man
--not the way he came at me after your wink--
and I don't think he really appreciated your beauty.

Because yours is an exceptional kind of beauty
one unexpected in the alley behind Starbucks.
I can still see your wink...
your cute nose and brown hair; you
and that awful gentile man,
and I can still see your face as you came.

Your face as you came!
Never have I seen such beauty!
I don't want to know about that man
and what you were doing behind Starbucks.
I mean, a nice Jewish girl like you?
(though with a very naughty wink...)

Let's forget that wink for a moment.
Your Bubbie must wonder what became
of you and all of the girls like you
-with your pale skin and dark beauty--
What kind of girl goes behind Starbucks
with what kind of sick gentile man?

I mean, I can understand the man.
I surely wasn't the first to catch your wink
But the alley behind Starbucks?
I'm still glad that I came
and I am still glad of your beauty.
I would really like to meet you.

I am your man. I have been since the alley behind Starbucks.
It could only be me for you, you and your wink--please respond!
I can't forget how your lust became beauty. I can't forget you.

From American Scholar

2011-03-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

A compelling article from which we could learn much about liberty, patriotism--and who can be a patriot. "You would even hear [German] in public-school classrooms, where the children of immigrants received instruction in the mother tongue. Politically, too, the newcomers were a class apart. Many had fled the aftermath of the failed liberal revolutions that had swept across Europe in 1848...Missouri’s slaveholding class represented exactly what they had detested in the old country, exactly what they had wanted to escape: a swaggering clique of landed oligarchs...[T]he Germans prided themselves on being...“filled with more intensive concepts of freedom, with more expansive notions of humanity, than most peoples of the earth”—more imbued with true democratic spirit, indeed more American than the Americans themselves." More here: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/civil-warfare-in-the-streets/

a letter from milena

2011-03-24T10:01:00.014-05:00

I got a piece of spam from "Musselwhite Milena" at the incredibly sketchy domain @xxx-amateurs.nl. The subject line was "Bruise," so I opened it. "Leave me alone, leave me alone," she wrote, "Sincerely Your, Musselwhite Milena."

This is, I said to myself, just the time for a sort of sestina noir.

her letter came like a bruise.
she wrote leave me alone leave me
alone. she wrote it twice.
i looked at the postmark: .nl
and she signed her letter
your milena

i remember when i met milena
back then she wore her face like a bruise
and the word fit her to the letter.
when i caught her eye she knew me.
even in the darkest hash bar of .nl
i didn't have to call her twice

we made love that night, twice.
my throat was hoarse with hash and milena
and my lips got raw, rauw in .nl
after, we drank a couple brews
she told me she loved me
i said, put it in a letter

this isn't that letter
milena never wrote me twice
she wrote leave me alone, leave me...
just this one time. i've left you, milena
i left you in the dark with your bruise
and what was left of my life in .nl

i had trouble there, see? i had to leave .nl
on the nightstand i left a letter
i wrote about your bruise
and how we made love, twice
and how you sang in your sleep, milena
a little do-re-mi...

it was the only way out for me
to say goodbye to you and .nl
i'm sorry you found me, milena
i'm sorry you wrote that letter
because now they'll find me twice
and it'll be two bullets, not just a bruise

milena, you have to stop writing me
bruise is blauwe plek in .nl....
goodbye milena, (burn this letter, twice)

Book Review: The Other City by Michal Ajvaz; trans. by Gerald Turner

2011-03-19T16:37:00.001-05:00

I wrote about this, too. I still don't have a copy. Even though I have a subscription. Others have it. Not me.

Book Review: The Rest is Jungle by Mario Benedetti; trans. by Harry Morales

2011-03-19T16:35:00.001-05:00

I wrote it.

A movie I want to see

2011-02-02T10:12:00.002-06:00

Mickey Rourke is Muammar Qaddafi.

From Foreign Policy

2011-01-27T15:07:00.002-06:00

I sat down for lunch with the Arab League secretary general, Amre Moussa. He overheard me talking about Netanyahu's meeting with Vice President Biden ... his ears perked up, and we ended up breaking bread. Good fellow to talk with at Davos, not much of a Middle East contingent here ... so he's not all that busy (more on the WEF's western orientation later--there's a lot worth considering there). My main takeaway: I came away much more concerned about Egypt's stability/trajectory than I was entering the meeting.

Most amusing bit: he's the first person I've ever met at Davos who asked me about my identity before answering a question. It was something about Israel/Palestine and he stopped and asked ... are you Jewish? From Israel? I gamely replied that I was at Davos, isn't everyone? (Ed note: I'm German/Armenian Catholic from Boston. Go Celtics!) To which, give him credit, he chuckled.

More here: http://eurasia.foreignpolicy.com/category/topic/davos11

No Boomerangs

2010-12-21T01:08:00.001-06:00

While watching The Bourne Identity, I saw this street sign:

Last night

2010-11-15T23:26:00.003-06:00

My wife and I share a few hundred square feet with a few thousand books and a quartet of fifth-generation fruit flies. When I turn out the lights at night, fruit flies and wife both fall asleep and in the dark I can't see our empties, or my unread books, or the dust bunnies blowing like tumbleweed across the floor. In what passes for darkness, the television, one of those old cabinet numbers, still glows a kind of gray, and alongside it, three narrow windows with ill-fitting shades let a yellow crack of Chicago's buttery streetlight in along three sides. It's less than pitch black, but sitting there with the four glowing rectangles and a glass of gin, it's as close as I ever get to forgetting all of the things I have left undone, to hiding them from sight. And as the ice melts in my incomplete night, my drink gets wetter, and I tell myself that I'll just have to drink a little more if I want to see a little less.

Another jacket blurb

2010-11-10T11:04:00.004-06:00

So, I was idly shelving a book or two when I came across the now-eighteen-month-old paperback of Memories From a Sinking Ship by Barry Gifford. With my blurb on the cover, FRONT AND BACK. Did I know about this? No. Am I quoted by name? Also, no. But there it is, and it does credit The Review of Contemporary Fiction.

Book Review: Hecate & Her Dogs by Paul Morand

2010-10-20T18:23:00.001-05:00

I reviewed this book for the RCF. 300 words or less is about my speed these days.

Book Review: Or, a blurb for S P R A W L by Danielle Dutton

2010-10-20T18:21:00.002-05:00

While walking those safe and sterile streets at night and crossing my neighbors' perfect lawns, I felt—or maybe assumed—that their whole world was empty and that nothing was going on even in the minds of the people inside their homes. While living there I was always comforted by the idea that the lives of neighbors were as empty as they seemed. But Dutton has filled all of the supposed emptiness of suburbia with a flood of thought and feeling. Her protagonist's powerful stream of consciousness peeks inward and outward, bringing her marriage, her world, and herself in powerfully shifting focus, as if she was passing everything around her under a microscope for the span of a second. This is a truly disturbing book . . . and it makes me damn nervous.

Guess what was originally in the ellipsis.

Movies watched this month, starting this morning and going backward

2010-10-20T13:32:00.001-05:00

Europa Europa
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Three Days of the Condor
The Big Sleep
The Godfather: Part II
The Matrix Revolutions
Defiance
Good Will Hunting
Searching for Bobby Fischer
La Moustache
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Archangel (BBC miniseries)

It's late and I am on the Internet, reading things.

2010-10-04T01:01:00.003-05:00

A sampling from each of my open windows:

In Zionism's case, the story told is of Israel restored to the Jews from antiquity, carved from empty desert, "a land without a people for a people without a land". By extension, Arab hostility to Israel's creation was irrational cruelty directed against an infant state.

It is a romantic myth requiring a big lie about the indigenous Palestinian population.

Langurs are a common type on monkey in south Asia, and because they are large and fierce they are often used in India to keep other monkeys in check in public places.

There has never been an Arab leader in contemporary Arab history who was as capable of moving the Arab street or shaping Arab political thought as Nasser.

For many, then and today, Nasser personified anti-colonialist, modern Arab political thought and that made him one of the most influential world leaders of his time. His advocacy of Arab independence and support for revolutionary movements around the world placed him and the Arab world at the forefront of representing the emerging countries of the South against an imperialist North.

The undeniable reality is that the work becomes the translator’s (while simultaneously and mysteriously somehow remaining the work of the original author) as we transmute it into a second language. Perhaps transmute is the wrong verb; what we do is not an act of magic, like altering base metals into precious ones, but the result of a series of creative decisions and imaginative acts of criticism.

As far as I know, the most perfect gentleman in literature is Charles Swann. The son of a stockbroker, Swann is equally at home with his father’s bourgeois neighbors, with seedy bohemians, or with the Prince of Wales. None of whom know about the other worlds through which he moves. Swann, a Jew, is somehow more aristocratic than any aristocrat. Alone among Proust’s male characters, he is free of snobbery. He has beautiful manners. He is a friend to all men.

I wasn’t there, but I assume that he was referring to untranslated words like insha’allah, masha’allah, jihad, madrassa and so on. And indeed, this subtle definition by “un-translation” that seems to create new (and sometimes nefarious) meanings. Insha’allah becomes something that connotes laziness. Jihad connotes some absurd “clash of the civilizations.”

Your search yielded no results

Check if your spelling is correct.
Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: "blue smurf" will match less than blue smurf.
Consider loosening your query with OR: blue smurf will match less than blue OR smurf.

Who am I and what can I do?

2010-08-05T15:35:00.005-05:00

In the first place, let me acknowledge: I am a human being and I have no rights. That in the face of every declaration to the contrary, national and international, governmental and otherwise. A thing like a government cannot grant me on a whim that which can be so easily snatched away by another. A group of governments is equally powerless, or somehow, more so. And so I am a human being, so far as I know, so far as I understand, and I have no rights. What do I have?

I certainly haven't the right to write this or to post this, to think or to breathe this these thoughts. So this is anarchy or the internet, this is rebellion or establishment, this is what I will do because this has occurred to me and because the only mandate that exists is the mandate of the moment. It's the mandate that can keep me abed in the late afternoon drinking wine and the one that forces me up to the toilet to relieve myself.

The moment.

And so I have no rights and my actions are dictated by the moment. Dictated? Am I subject then to the moment? I am subject surely to the amount of wine left in the bottle, to the amount of sunlight leaking through my curtains, and to gravity. I suppose I could skip the toilet, but then I would be subject to discomfort. I can almost choose my masters, but it is written and it is read: we will have masters. I can be compelled, I think, to do almost anything by almost any individual, association of individuals, government, or group of governments. I breathe no free breath because I cannot choose to be and not to breathe. I am not free.

I am a human being and I have no rights. I am not free, but I still have wine.

But what, again, am I? I am a continuous skin sack, with an inner and an outer. The skin runs along fingertips and up fingers. It crosses the wrist and continues up the arm. It wraps the skeleton and, well, also around some other things--I'm no anatomist, after all--and it connects, continuously (barring some calamity) to itself in all cases, crossing a rib cage and a sternum, a clavicle and a trachea, some lips and a. . .

Bits of my skeleton stick out of the continuous sack into my mouth. There are thirty-two bits of skeleton exposed in the average adult human mouth. I have no right to these bits of bone and someone could take them from me, with or without my permission, at any time. I don't own my body, my continuous skin sack, and I don't own those thirty-two bits of bone.

In which case I am not my skin sack. I am a human being, separate from, but inside of, a continuous human skin sack with thirty-two bits of exposed skeleton, and no rights, no freedom, and no idea what I am to do here in this bed.

Except to drink wine.

Facts

2010-08-02T20:40:00.005-05:00

Do not let my silence here fool you. The fact is, I am just as self-absorbed as ever. I have all kinds of things going on that I've made important merely by my association. I have been fruitful, and I've multiplied my doings, my comings and goings, my contributings and public scoffings.

I've been reading lately.

I've made dinner tonight, too. (Lemon tarragon grilled chicken breast. Rice pilaf with almond slivers and golden raisins. Yellow tomato slices, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil.)

I've pointed at books, here and here.

I have eaten ice cream here.

And I have done all of this whilst working 50 hour (more?) weeks.

And

Tim Wise on the Tea Partiers

2010-04-27T19:38:00.002-05:00

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

From Metropolitan Life by Fran Leibowitz

2010-04-25T02:06:00.003-05:00

"When it comes to sports I am not particularly interested. Generally speaking, I look upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury."

Book Review: After & Making Mistakes by Gabriel Josipovici

2010-04-16T09:14:00.001-05:00

I reviewed this, with some missteps, for The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Annotated

2010-03-11T16:29:00.016-06:00

Old Julia Wallace once suggested that the Co-op blog (which I administer) carry "annotated bookshelves." Sometime more recently, The New Yorker's Book Bench blog started running "The Subconscious Shelf," an unfortunately useless feature that, nonetheless, compelled me to photograph things in my apartment today. Without further ado, a series of annotated bookshelves.

Here, we have a disgusting scented candle (pumpkin?), a discarded glove, and some books. Red to Black is a thriller that didn't thrill me immediately. The boxed set of Beckett is simply beautiful, even if it duplicates a number of other books I own. I once resolved to read the complete works of Beckett and, well, didn't. There's also a DVD of Kafka's The Castle. I borrowed it from a coworker almost six months ago. Yikes. The red book under the light switch is a book on American empire written by Eric Hobsbawm. It was highly recommended by a fellow named John who I couldn't regard more highly. And hey! There's that copy of The Museum of Eterna I was looking for! The Barbara Ehrenreich comes from my bizarre notion of what Jessica might like to read. I think I'm doing better now because, well, here's another picture.

Here's a copy of The Condemnation of Blackness, a book I think Jessica actually likes. I was working the author event (lots of people!) and it sounded like the kind of thing she might be interested in, interested as she is in iniquities and inequality and so on. The Elias Khoury book there is forthcoming from Archipelago and I've agreed to review it for Three Percent. I'm counting on all of you to hold me to that. The Arts & Crafts book? What? Let's look at another shelf.

On the top shelf, we have a rarely functioning modem and a totem of some kind. Canadian, I think. Also, a few CDs: Dengue Fever, Ethiopiques, Dianne Reeves, and some Numero Group releases. Beneath that, a translation of War & Peace that I have never read, an empty dust jacket (for Every Man Dies Alone), some books that one of my employers published, and Foucault's Pendulum. Which is awesome. Between the Somekh book and the DVD of The Lives of Others, there's a copy of my undergrad lit journal. I understand that none of this has been overwhelming or even interesting, but bear with me. The next shelf is much BETTER.

Maybe "much more" is an overstatement, but this shelf is chock-a-block with nominees for the Best Translated Book Award. And some other stuff, like an autographed copy of Simon Winchester's The Man Who Loved China, and an old Linksys router. Next to that, there's a copy of Goldberg Variations, a great book by Gabriel Josipovici.

Unfortunately for you, Katie-Anne and Reese-Anna have reminded me of how self-absorbed blogging can and should be. More of this in the future, in the meantime, here's most of the rest of 'em:

Book Review: The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven

2010-03-11T09:17:00.000-06:00

I reviewed this just after it won the Best Translated Book Award.
And naturally, I posted it to The Front Table.

Book Review: Tropisms by Nathalie Sarraute

2010-03-10T09:23:00.000-06:00

Not a book review. But I wrote it.

The Constant Conversation

2010-02-26T14:26:00.003-06:00

I've been blogging up a storm on the collaborative Constant Conversation, the adjunct blog of The Quarterly Conversation. Bookmark it. Or, just read what I write:

Look to the Margins

Credit Where It's Due

Interventions

Book Review: The Country Where No One Ever Dies

2010-02-18T17:11:00.002-06:00

I wrote this for Words Without Borders: http://wordswithoutborders.org/book-review/ornela-vorspi/ I don't know.

Metropolitan (Shuffle)

2010-02-06T16:02:00.004-06:00

Lying on the floor with the dust bunnies and dirt weasels, I finally started reading Fran Lebowitz's Metropolitan Life and laughing with an abandon usually reserved for the failures and insecurities of my friends.

Also, in concert with, and to compliment the phrase "dust
bunnies," people should note also the "dirt weasels" and "dander
shrews." Also, perhaps, "filth foxes."

I need to vacuum.

2010-02-04T09:50:00.002-06:00

Money is never yours. It represents value, and you generate value. You move money, extract from it some approximation of the value you put into it, and then it leaves you, like a child all grown up.

From Answers From a Bicycle Mechanic

2010-01-12T10:54:00.001-06:00

This appeared in the comments section:
Doyle is of course being fatuous. However his exposition raises a certain etymological quandary. How does one express the possessive form in this case? The proper spelling of the chain is Popeyes Chicken (as noted once in a Times article the founder lamented that he was too poor to afford an apostrophe).

Therefore one can only conclude that the possessive form in this case would be best expressed as “Popeyes Chicken’s gravy.”
— Baron Vanderbilt Steiner Houndstooth II

Book Review: Almost Three Scandinavian Novels

2010-01-11T09:21:00.000-06:00

I neglected to mention that I wrote this recommendation. Is it important? No.

Berryman on Henry

2010-01-07T18:51:00.002-06:00

Henry does resemble me, and I resemble Henry; but on the other hand I am not Henry. You know, I pay income tax; Henry pays no income tax. And bats come over and they stall in my hair—and fuck them, I'm not Henry; Henry doesn't have any bats.

read at http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/a_f/berryman/interviews.htm

To combat frivolry in politics and speech:

2009-12-29T14:43:00.001-06:00

The losing candidates in any contest should be incarcerated.

2009

2009-12-29T13:53:00.005-06:00

This year was, more or less, 2008 in disguise.
I have no greater hopes for 2010.

My shoes just aren't as comfortable as they used to be.

What is any of this for? It's not art.
The future holds more of the same.

Mistake in Reading

2009-12-21T09:53:00.000-06:00

The brazen pre-dawn Friday theft of one of the Holocaust's most chilling symbols sparked outrage from around the world. Polish leaders launched an intensive search for the 16-foot sign that spanned the main gate of the camp in southern Poland where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed during World War II.

At first, I thought the search spanned the gate. In which case the police were not trying very hard. And then, I realized that I am not very bright.

From the notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

2009-12-19T16:50:00.000-06:00

If a man could pass thro’ Paradise in a Dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his Soul had really been there, and found that flower in his hand when he awoke—Aye? and what then?

Book Review AND Book Review

2009-11-23T14:48:00.009-06:00

I reviewed Working Knowledge, by Petr Král and The Illustrated Version of Things, by Affinity Konar several months ago and the RCF printed them despite the fact that there is at least one embarrassing phrase and an instance in which I may not actually be using a real word.

Extra points though for whoreson.

A funny sort

2009-11-11T12:30:00.001-06:00

"Papaya farmers can be a funny sort. Ask them if they’d rather have a boy or girl, and without hesitation every last one of them will say “hermaphrodite”—if they’re talking about papayas, of course."

Pnin Cover by Jerzy Faczynski

2009-11-11T11:30:00.004-06:00

Who would say something like, this is the "best Nabokov cover I've ever seen--blows the sh**ty Vintage/Random House motif out of the water?"

Well, I would, and did, and there weren't any asterisks in there at the time.

Beall, owner of Ruby Tuesday, on their "transformation"

2009-11-08T13:43:00.000-06:00

“We lost about 5 percent to 8 percent of our base by upgrading, mostly at lower income levels,” he says with a shrug. “Very few people miss the roller skates on the wall and the bad food.”

Five Best at Granta.com

2009-10-22T14:18:00.002-05:00

This is a picture of me and I wrote these, even if my name appears nowhere.

Tell me more

2009-10-21T01:49:00.001-05:00

"In the lab, adult teeth soaked in white wine for a day had a loss of both calcium and another mineral called phosphorus to depths of up to 60 micrometers in the enamel surface, which the researchers say is significant."

Tell me more about this exciting new. . .what did you call it? A mineral? PHOS-PHOR-US? What, BBC? What?

Fair enough

2009-10-16T22:58:00.004-05:00

"In this respect, I can’t help regarding medicine cabinets, vacuum cleaners and dead sharks as reckless investments. Somewhere out there in collectorland is the unlucky guy who will be the last one holding the vacuum cleaner, and wondering why."

Though a single* reasonable sentiment in the midst of a display of stunning douchebaggery is no redemption.

*There may have been a few more.**

**Nope. Nevermind.

Unacceptable Award

2009-10-12T14:53:00.002-05:00

"It had been observed that some who develop high fevers could be cured of syphilis. Thus, for a brief time malaria was used as treatment for tertiary syphilis because it produced prolonged and high fevers (a form of pyrotherapy). This was considered an acceptable risk because the malaria could later be treated with quinine which was available at that time. This discovery was championed by Julius Wagner-Jauregg, who won the 1927 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work in this area."
From Wikipedia

Unacceptable attachment

2009-10-10T13:53:00.002-05:00

"So attached was the author Patricia Highsmith to snails that they became her constant travelling companions. Secreted in a large handbag or, in the case of travel abroad, carefully positioned under each breast, they provided her with comfort and companionship in what she perceived to be a hostile world."

From Snail by Peter Williams

A Reading

2009-09-25T23:16:00.000-05:00

I read at a Joyland:Chicago event today. With Olga's and Levi's help, of course, and Dave's tacit support. It was my first reading since Interrobang.

Dreyfus Affair and the Man on My Wall

2009-09-24T18:37:00.000-05:00

What I Overheard a Chicago Cop Say Today

2009-09-23T20:55:00.003-05:00

"Why did I become a cop? Free transportation, free gas--plus, my job is to go out on the highway and fuck with people! And nobody's gonna fuck with me back! I'm a cop!"

Also, remind me to tell you the joke that a different cop told me last month while I was eating tacos. It was enough to chill whatever is usually warm and peel things best left unpeeled.

Enough really to soothe anyone. . .

2009-09-19T22:01:00.003-05:00

"In the proposal, which The New York Times examined, Mr. Young asserts that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band."

But this strains CREDULITY: "Ms. Hunter gave her daughter the middle name Quinn, and people who have spoken with her said its resemblance to the Latin prefix for five was to proclaim that the baby was Mr. Edwards’s fifth child. (He had four with Mrs. Edwards, the oldest of whom was killed in a car accident)."

From the NY Times

Yuppie Paradise

2009-09-09T21:32:00.004-05:00

It's come to my attention that I never posted pictures of our new apartment. Here they are:

Honestly, that feels like enough, doesn't it?

The difference between principal and principle

2009-09-07T19:41:00.005-05:00

Does this homonym make it sound like she can't afford the fine? Yes.
Am I a bit of a pedant? Probably.

From The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch

2009-09-05T23:36:00.000-05:00

"The word is my stimulant, my narcotic, and I've acquired a taste for overdosing. Language is my second--what am I saying, second--language is my first addiction."

Dinner

2009-09-05T21:16:00.006-05:00

Sauteed cremini mushrooms, shallots, pine nuts, and garlic atop grilled pesto chicken breast on ciabatta toast. Fresh spinach & asparagus. Pecorino Romano and black pepper everywhere.

Yes, I still eat. Roughly the same things I always eat, reconstituted in very slightly different ways. Poor photography? That's basically my trademark.

A Note about a Hero

2009-08-25T21:39:00.008-05:00

My coworker and compartriot, Clams Cosino, is a hero.

See, Clams went above and beyond the call of reason recently, and while that's not unusual, he did so on my behalf. On Saturday night, Jeggy and I were invited to Soldier Field to see the Bears play the Giants (in what I am told was a preseason game) by a generous coworker of hers. It was my first time visiting that venerable stadium with a funny hat, and I was not aware that I would be patted down by security prior to entrance. Naturally, I was carrying a good-sized pocket knife. Apprised of this fact, Jeggs suggested I divest myself of all such menacing objects and deposit my knife in the nearest trash can.

"Nay," said I.

Instead, I chose to hide it under a bush and creep back to it after the game. I do creep, on occasion.

So it went and so we went and the game was a success for the hometown team and everyone involved was very pleased, except, I expect, the hapless Giants. We had startlingly good seats--16 rows up between the 30 and 40 yard lines--and I ate an Italian beef sandwich and drank a domestic beer. Not so bad an August evening.

When we left the ol' gridiron (as I am told it is called), however, there was an unexpected obstacle to my reunion with my old knife. A security guard. Standing, more or less, atop the very bush where it was located. I had my own misgivings, but Jessica had more.

"You're not," she said, "going to crawl about at that man's feet and come up with a knife."

". . .Nay," said I, sadly.

The next day, as I related this story to one Clams Cosino, I could see him hatching something noble under his pale and dimpled scalp.

"I am going on a knife quest," he announced with the quiet dignity inherent to his being. "I am going to recover the lost knife!"

This struck me as overly generous, given especially my penchant for punching Clams in the kidneys, but I drew the fellow a map and promised him a wealth of Dr. Pepper for his success.

And he was. A success. A trifle bit rusty and with a dashing dirt patina, my pocket knife was back in my pocket.

Hats off to you, Clams!

My Dad in his new cycling jersey

2009-08-21T19:58:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday, little Dad!

From the new NEA chairman

2009-08-10T11:46:00.001-05:00

In American politics generally, Landesman added: “The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay.”

Book Review: Three Works by Jakov Lind

2009-08-09T16:00:00.002-05:00

I gave a brief overview of Jakov Lind's recent and forthcoming reprints in The Quarterly Conversation.

Brief.

An Excerpt from THE GAIETY OF HENRY JAMES by Norman Lock

2009-08-04T11:37:00.001-05:00

Henry traipses through Central Park in search of wood nymphs, such is the overheated condition of his fancy. He would not mind in the least being ravaged by a mythological being, so long as she alludes, at least in part, to a woman. He finds no wood nymphs, alas. Instead, he discovers Lord Baden-Powell artfully concealed in a shrubbery.

“I am Lord Baden-Powell, Companion, Order of the Bath; Grand Commander of the Order of Christ; Grand Commander of the Order of the Redeemer; Commander of the Order of the Oaken Crown; Storkos of the Order of Dannebrog; Commander of the Legion of Honor, Knight of Grace of St. John of Jerusalem; Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George; Knight Grand Cross of Alfonso XII of Spain; Knight of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and also of Amanullah, the Red Cross of Estonia, the White Lion, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword, and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Three Stars.”

He salutes the novelist, smartly, the blade of his hand disappearing under the wheeling brim of his campaign hat. Henry lifts his top hat in answer.

“I am Henry James, author of The American, Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Princess Casamassima, The Tragic Muse, What Maisie Knew, Spoils of Poynton, The Turn of the Screw, The Sacred Fount, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl and – to be left unfinished at my death – The Ivory Tower and The Sense of the Past. What brings you, sir, to Central Park?”

“I am in search of boys for the international Boy Scout movement, which I fathered.”

“I myself am in search of nymphs. I long for La belle époque.”

CASABLANCA by Elizabeth Bishop

2009-08-04T10:46:00.006-05:00

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
Trying to recite "The boy stood on
The burning deck." Love's the son

Stood stammering elocution

While the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
Even the swimming sailors, who
Would like a school platform, too,

Or an excuse to stay

On deck. And love's the burning boy.

Truth

2009-07-29T18:04:00.002-05:00

"The world doesn’t owe me a living, and if the world doesn’t want to buy my books, that’s my problem.”-William Vollman

From the same article's first paragraph, a nonsensical remark: "Inside he runs a one-man assembly line."

The Origin of Applause

2009-07-27T12:40:00.002-05:00

See, back in the olden days, and due in a large part to poor hygiene, there were rampant insect problems. During performances, musical and otherwise, it was considered rude to slap or scratch the many flies, ticks, fleas, etc that were constantly biting the audience, see? So, the moment the last note sounded, there was always a massive cascade of relieved audience members slapping and rising from their seats to kill all of the bugs that had been feasting on them for the duration of the performance.

And that is how applause began.

Fact

2009-07-22T23:08:00.001-05:00

At Harold's Chicken Shack on 53rd, there's a sign posted:

"No returns after seven days."

I forgot to tell you about the sparrow

2009-07-21T13:17:00.006-05:00

On the way home from work last night, I saw a sparrow sitting on a bicycle. When I approached, it did a singular thing: nothing at all. Singular because I am accustomed to the flight (in two senses of the word) of small creatures at my approach.

So the sparrow neither fled nor flew and so I very naturally stopped walking and dug about in my parcels and pockets for a bit of rice to offer him or her and when I found it, I remembered that the rice was heavily spiced and that I should do what I could to make it more palatable to this singular creature and so I chewed it a bit and sucked the pepper from it and then I wadded it up and placed it right under the sparrow's beak.

The sparrow was unmoved. So I extended a finger and stroked his (or her) little sparrow skullcap.

The sparrow moved, but only a bit, and only to express annoyance. And so I sat down on the sidewalk and I stared at it, the sparrow, for a bit.

Until a German woman on a bicycle asked what I was doing and if I would move so that she could lock up her bicycle and so I pointed out to her that the sparrow was unconcerned by our presence and then I poked it in the beak (softly) and she (zee German) said to me, "Well, maybe it's waiting to die."

Which, oddly, hadn't occurred to me, though I had supposed that maybe low blood sugar was to blame which I had already tried to rectify with the rice and I explained that to zee German and she said that maybe it was too late for rice and we left that sparrow there to die on its bicycle while she went off to park her bicycle and I joined Bridget on a trip to Dairy Queen.

On the way to work this morning, I stopped to look for the sparrow, but all I found was the rice on the bicycle.

From Paris Review via the LA Times

2009-07-21T13:15:00.000-05:00

"No, no, no. I think nobody on earth writes down. Garbage though they turn out, Hollywood writers aren’t writing down. That is their best. If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you. I want so much to write well, though I know I don’t, and that I didn’t make it. But during and at the end of my life, I will adore those who have." -Dorothy Parker

Another note about technology

2009-07-21T02:27:00.006-05:00

I haven't the slightest idea how to remove the lint from my sodding dryer.

Further note: at work today, it fell on me to attempt to repair our wireless network. Not exactly a success, but I did accurately diagnose the problem. Boss says, "I didn't know that you were also a tech guy." I respond, "Only in present company am I a tech guy."

Only in a bookstore, friends.

New to me

2009-07-21T02:22:00.002-05:00

Remember when Skype was new to me? Well, I've only once or twice successfully used it because I only know one or two people who actually have it. And one of them is my dad.

I have, however, acquired a laptop with a camera and reasonably accurate mic. I have also successfully Gmail video chatted with at least two people. At most, four and a half.

I give the range because I don't remember, however, I am certain that I assured each of my fellow chatters that it was my first. Video chat. Suddenly, I understand the pressure faced by young girls everywhere.

Also, the half was Jessica. Not that she's half of a person, but we were kind of in the same room when we chatted. Not so cool, am I?

Oh.

Black/White Market

2009-07-17T11:37:00.007-05:00

You know what would be great? An end to all stores, everywhere. Instead, a sort of black market-styled marketplace in which you have to know who to go to for what. Imagine how much more engaging that would be and the capacity such a model has to convey a sense of knowledge and status to people. Also intriguing would be the idea that everyone would have nicknames that described their trade, but in a round-about way (everything should be round-about); for instance: Shirtless Joe would sell pants. Why? Because he doesn't sell shirts. You're going to have to trust me here, I guess, when I tell you that Bald Mike is the barber and Smooth Mike sells razors and Natalie No-Pants sells skirts and, well, you're just going to have to trust me when I tell you that Flap-Foot Fran doesn't sell shoelaces, but does sell flip-flops. And maybe her feet flop, too.

For shoelaces, I am not sure where you go. Also, I'm not at all sure why I thought this was a good idea.

Publishing advice from Richard Nash

2009-07-17T11:37:00.006-05:00

“Make a lot of friends. Go to a lot of parties. Reach out, on- and offline. Be part of the communities that Soft Skull publishes into, and keep accepting unsolicited manuscripts because the people who send unsolicited manuscripts are your readers.”

I'm not sure I'll ever have the endurance for this shit.

Lovely

2009-07-10T01:32:00.001-05:00

In a speech last year in Berlin, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner paid tribute to the war children, the first time a French government had officially done so, calling them “the offspring of damned women and fathers whose memory has been assassinated.” Sixty years after the fact, he said, “they ask for their misery, their lives, their identity to be recognized.”
-From NY TIMES

Goodnight.

2009-07-09T23:23:00.005-05:00

Last night, Agreeable Dave and I had an agreeable time; this morning was less agreeable and this afternoon was spent on the living room rug, asleep. Which was agreeable because it leaves me alert now to do this and, maybe later, that.

And despite being unable (hampered as I am by stupidity) to keep reasonable hours, I work. As I will tomorrow and the next day and for every foreseeable day of the next fifty or so years. And once I realized that life doesn't get much better, it seemed much better than it had before. Even in the midst of the constant dissolution of human relations and the realization that satisfaction is unwon and unwinnable, even in the tall grass of confusion and the liquid haze of early morning, none of this is so bad that needs to be flushed, razed, or burned. None of this is as bad as that.

And in an apartment that resembles a stage set for some kind of urban domestic bliss--though currently strewn with Agreeable empties and sadly lacking my better third and any kind of non-rice food--I can feel somewhat sweaty and somewhat pleased to have a cold cocktail and a good book and the promise of peace when Jessica comes home tomorrow. Because I will take out the garbage.

I am obliged now, to go and read and to feel urbane in a way you can only buy.

Goodnight.

From Ghosts by César Aira

2009-07-07T21:31:00.002-05:00

. . .it is possible to imagine an art in which the limitations of reality would be minimized, in which the made and the unmade would be indistinct, an art that would be instantaneously real, without ghosts. And perhaps that art exists, under the name literature."

What a neat guy he was and what a neat and dead guy he is.

2009-07-07T00:17:00.004-05:00

The Fog of War remains the best movie I have ever snuck into. Eh, Olgz?

Note to the publisher.

2009-06-28T18:11:00.001-05:00

Would Norton consider completely making my day by reissuing the Highsmith boxed set with paper-over-board editions (like that nice Beckett Centenary that Grove did a few years back?) and stop it with the ridiculous dust jackets?

No, probably not.

I will, finally, respond to this. . .

2009-06-26T22:28:00.003-05:00

but not, my friends, where anyone who asked me will read it.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

In no particular order:

1. The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
3. My World and Welcome to It by James Thurber
4. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
5. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
6. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
7. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
8. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
9. How It Is by Samuel Beckett
10. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
11. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
12. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
13. The Castle by Franz Kafka
14. Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
15. The Portable Dorothy Parker

Note: I will not pretend for one second that I enjoy Pale Fire. Instead, that book taught me that there is a limit to my enjoyment of books and of their appeal to me. A depressing day that was immediately brightened by the realization that Samuel Beckett was there for people like me and that the world was full of less opaque and convoluted perverts than Nabokov for me to latch onto. Jakov Lind, for one, a man who would make number sixteen on this list with ease.

Book Review: Everyday Spooks by Karel Michal

2009-06-19T10:45:00.005-05:00

I reviewed, with only occasional incoherence, Everyday Spooks for The Review of Contemporary Fiction.

From COUNTING MY STEPS by Jakov Lind

2009-06-19T10:34:00.003-05:00

"The world is a maze of bookshops and libraries, editorial offices and universities, studios and stages, stuffed with literature and culture like a rhinoceros with formaldehyde. There is so much good intention in the world, so much belief in reason, friendship, and peace, so much moral outcry, so much printed agony and sheer horror, the best I can do is lock myself in my own mirror of events and see if there is anything left to chew."

and a bit later,

"The attic of my nineteenth-century soul is stuffed with weird obsessions. Future, past, hope, justice, Socialism to name but a few. The things in my attic were once Everything. And Everything has its place, a few places in fact."

And I am only mildly disappointed to say, but the majority of Lind's first autobiography isn't experimental nonsense or absurd perversion. It is autobiography, straight-forward and observant.

Title for a prospective novel: Formaldehyde Park

From Strangers in the Land by Eric J. Sundquist

2009-06-16T21:53:00.004-05:00

Writing in 1961, Daniel Bell, the secular child of observant immigrants, described himself as one "who has not faith, but memory," who was "born in galut [exile]," and accepts. . ."the double burden and double pleasure of my self-consciousness, the outward life of the American and the inward secret of the Jew. I walk with this sign as a frontlet between my eyes, and it is as visible to some secret others as their sign is to me."

From Why I am so wise by Friedrich Nietzsche

2009-06-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

"Like every man who has never been able to meet his equal, and to whom the notion of "retaliation" is just as incomprehensible as the notion of "equal rights," I have forbidden myself all measures of security or protection and also, naturally, of defense and "justification" in all cases where I have encountered foolishness, whether trifling or very great. My form of retaliation is this: as soon as possible I follow up my encounter with stupidity with a piece of cleverness; by this means perhaps one may still overtake it. To use an image: I swallow a pot of jam in order to get rid of a sour taste. . . . just let anybody give me offense-I shall "retaliate," he may be assured of That. . ."

Very Entertaining

2009-06-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

Klaus Mann, the critic Marcel ReichRanicki has said, was triply afflicted: he was gay, he was addicted to drugs, and he was the son of Thomas Mann. With the exception of himself – but at least he could rely on himself in this regard – no one seemed to take Klaus entirely seriously. The best joke about Klaus Mann – deep and strange, as Brecht’s jokes tend to be – is by Brecht: “The whole world knows Klaus Mann, the son of Thomas Mann. By the way, who is Thomas Mann?”. Others are less funny, merely punny: W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman (who were his in-laws, I suppose), hearing there was a Klaus Mann autobiography on the way – he published the first one at the age of twenty-five – proposed such titles for it as “The Invisible Mann” and “Subordinate Klaus”.

--from TLS

3 Songs I Like By Living Musicians

2009-06-02T20:28:00.003-05:00

From The Quiet American by Graham Greene

2009-06-01T18:27:00.002-05:00

"Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

I haven't read this, but I plan to do so soon.

News

2009-05-31T22:48:00.002-05:00

New MacBook? I have one.

BEA? I went.

Cash? I'm out.

Fun? A little too much.

Thanks to Charlotte for the hospitality.

Book Review: The Ninth by Ferenc Barnas

2009-05-21T16:13:00.002-05:00

Without the luxury of proofreading, I've reviewed a book.
For Three Percent again.

My sister has gained a stunning new hat

2009-05-17T14:22:00.001-05:00

and a Juris Doctorate. Congratulations to her!

Illinois House Bill 2234 Sounds Like a Good Time

2009-05-03T13:00:00.001-05:00

Seriously, what's not to like?

Building details

2009-04-28T20:31:00.002-05:00

Somewhere in NYC. Financial District?

XJ loses her natural mind, a quote.

2009-04-24T14:44:00.002-05:00

"[Clarence Thomas] also says -

"I tend to be morose sometimes."

Amen, sir. What do you do when you get morose? I personally take Ritalin and watch the X-Files.

“Sometimes, when I get a little down . . . I look up wonderful speeches, like speeches by Douglas MacArthur, to hear him give without a note that speech at West Point — ‘duty, honor, country.’ How can you not hear those words and not feel strongly about what we have?”

Maybe because what we REALLY have is a global conspiracy to blind the eyes of ordinary citizens who are secretly being used as alien test subjects where the US military is a key player.

I have not just watched 20 episodes of X-Files in a row within the last 72 hours.
Full disclosure: I have, but I still wouldn't look up speeches. That's weird."

Getting closer. . .

2009-04-20T19:20:00.004-05:00

"...the much more likely future of books in which they are prized as artifacts, not as mechanisms for delivering written material to readers. This is print book as vinyl record — admired for its look and feel, its cover art, and relative permanence — but not so much for convenience."

This is kind of what I was getting at, but written by someone who clearly does not "get it." It's about the look and feel, it's about the cover art and the permanence AND it's not inconvenient, but it's still a wonderful "mechanism" and the book remains far more than an "artifact."

Also, hello. The linked article is yet another ridiculous instance of pressing one medium into another to the detriment of, well, everything. Ever.

"Yeats had nobody," but looked like my Grandpa Ed

2009-04-19T20:00:00.007-05:00

T. S. Eliot said, about his own attempts to write verse drama: “Yeats had nobody, we had Yeats.”

Noir-ish wisdom from the Middle East

2009-04-18T18:58:00.003-05:00

“If I had my way, I’d destroy all the mosques and spread the whores around a little more,” the detective said. “At least they’re not sectarian.”

Waiting For Godot. . . Like You Never Wanted To See It.

2009-04-18T18:47:00.006-05:00

Fact: Ska isn't cool anymore in Jamaica

2009-04-17T22:27:00.003-05:00

Maybe ska isn't cool in Jamaica anymore, but it's still cool here. In my apartment.

Roland Alphonso. Duke Reid. Don Drummond. Baba Brooks.

Excellent.

Elizabeth Warren: TARP Hottie

2009-04-16T19:49:00.001-05:00

So droll, so cute--catch her on The Daily Show. Last night's, I guess.