20 hours ago
31 May 2012
30 May 2012
"There's no good night noises anywhere!"
Look who had a cameo in this week's episode of "Mad Men"! I grew up with this book and as it was published in 1947, it was around early enough for (non-plot-revealing-spoiler) Pete to read to his kid in the cookie-cutter suburb of Cos Cob that he hates.
On porn
It's interesting to look at the cooked-up media furor over the FIFTY SHADES OF GREY trilogy (which I still haven't gotten around to reading, but am opining on anyway, as one does) as a reflection of accepted ideas about what I will delicately call the sexy entertainments.
What we "know" about straight-male-marketed video pornography and straight-female-marketed romance novels, based on my limited exposure to both, is that they are both poorly written and laughably unbelievable. ("The sexy teacher wants to see me after class?") Undoubtedly people consume both Academy Award-winning movies and the "After Dark" section of hotel in-room rentals. Perhaps even in the same trip! As people who might read FIFTY SHADES and then move onto THE MARRIAGE PLOT for their book club.
I appreciate the dubbing of FIFTY SHADES as "mommy porn" because it has been mostly read by women and initially earned its viral success among women, some of whom have children. It's fun to imagine all the moms at the playground whispering about Christian Grey, as the New York Post implied in its first story about FIFTY SHADES, even though it was probably their nannies at those Upper East Side playgrounds and not them. Even as it already falls apart, that's the accepted story, but it's problematic because it implies that "mommies" are into a certain kind of porn, and they're into it because something about their sex lives (or if you prefer, lives, generally) is disappointing, and it satisfies some need there. And that no one who doesn't fall into that category could possibly be into it, so if you're into it you must be all of those things, and ugh you are such a stereotype, and how dare you, etc.
There are plenty of strong objections one can make to FIFTY SHADES, but "gross, women enjoy it!" is a weak one. And if your biggest objection to FIFTY SHADES is that it's poorly written, I can only assume that your erotic entertainment of choice is all well-written and/or of Academy Award/ Pulitzer-level visual quality. I'm pretty sure their readers realize how badly written these books are. They read them for other reasons. (This excellent blog post compared that line of argument to "Fast food is bad for you, so we should tell everyone not to eat it as if there are people who don't already know that.")
What we "know" about straight-male-marketed video pornography and straight-female-marketed romance novels, based on my limited exposure to both, is that they are both poorly written and laughably unbelievable. ("The sexy teacher wants to see me after class?") Undoubtedly people consume both Academy Award-winning movies and the "After Dark" section of hotel in-room rentals. Perhaps even in the same trip! As people who might read FIFTY SHADES and then move onto THE MARRIAGE PLOT for their book club.
I appreciate the dubbing of FIFTY SHADES as "mommy porn" because it has been mostly read by women and initially earned its viral success among women, some of whom have children. It's fun to imagine all the moms at the playground whispering about Christian Grey, as the New York Post implied in its first story about FIFTY SHADES, even though it was probably their nannies at those Upper East Side playgrounds and not them. Even as it already falls apart, that's the accepted story, but it's problematic because it implies that "mommies" are into a certain kind of porn, and they're into it because something about their sex lives (or if you prefer, lives, generally) is disappointing, and it satisfies some need there. And that no one who doesn't fall into that category could possibly be into it, so if you're into it you must be all of those things, and ugh you are such a stereotype, and how dare you, etc.
There are plenty of strong objections one can make to FIFTY SHADES, but "gross, women enjoy it!" is a weak one. And if your biggest objection to FIFTY SHADES is that it's poorly written, I can only assume that your erotic entertainment of choice is all well-written and/or of Academy Award/ Pulitzer-level visual quality. I'm pretty sure their readers realize how badly written these books are. They read them for other reasons. (This excellent blog post compared that line of argument to "Fast food is bad for you, so we should tell everyone not to eat it as if there are people who don't already know that.")
29 May 2012
Summer Reading 2012
Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, I WANT MY MTV
Gretchen Rubin, FORTY WAYS TO LOOK AT WINSTON CHURCHILL
Cari Beauchamp, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS
Francine Prose, READ LIKE A WRITER
Jonathan Franzen, THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CITY
James Wood, HOW FICTION WORKS
Nick Hornby, MORE BATHS, LESS TALKING (pub. August)
Robert Moses, THE POWER BROKER
Richard Yates, COLLECTED STORIES
Katharine Graham, PERSONAL HISTORY
28 May 2012
Rufus Wainwright, "Out Of The Game"
Helena Bonham Carter plays a librarian with an imagination. Briefly NSFW.
From the album of the same name, which is terrific.
25 May 2012
Taking the L to Literary Upstart
Last night I went to Literary Upstart, a new-to-me short reading competition put on by The L Magazine. Literary Upstart consists of 3 "semifinal" readings in which 5 readers square off against a judges' panel (including New Yorker/ McSweeney's regular Ben Greenman) and a final round on June 27 with the winner to be published in the magazine. I had heard of this contest before, but in the interest of full disclosure I wasn't planning to go until I unexpectedly won a $20 bar tab for the event by answering a trivia question on Twitter. It eased my decision process, we shall say. (For this reason, I suggest that you follow them because I know they gave out a few such prizes during the week.)
From what I can tell, here's how to get an advantage in a competitive reading like this:
Anyway, I didn't write down the individual names of the readers, and wish I had, but I can't find them now sadly. My favorite reader was #4 in the lineup (first man to read); my partner in crime picked #2.
They all read, and then while the judges deliberated there was a trivia round featuring, apparently, random members of the audience. If they had asked for volunteers I would have stepped up due to having just consumed one pilsner and having high self-esteem. As panelists missed questions related to the New School, Henry James and FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS BASIL E FRANKWEILER, my partner in crime suggested that I "should have Kanye'd the stage" at this point. Maybe I should have! I believe the person who got 1 question right won the whole thing. Then they announced the reading winner, who wasn't who I had predicted, although I liked his story all right.
The event was held in an exposed-brick event room at a new hotel in Williamsburg called the Wythe. I didn't see the hotel itself, but the back room features a very nice bar and easily fit maybe 75-100 people seated in rows with plenty of space around. To enter the space, though, we had to cut through a sketchy alley behind the hotel proper. I noticed walking back to the L train (for which the magazine is named) that we were close to the Brooklyn Bowl and the Brooklyn Brewery, both fun places to hang out, and I can't think of another hotel in Williamsburg itself, so if you are looking to visit, check it out.
While I was fact-checking this post (oh, you fancy, huh) I noticed that the final submission deadline to enter Literary Upstart is Monday, so I'm going to cut down a piece I conveniently have sitting around and send it in. Here's the information on that. Don't worry, if I get picked I will let you all know and you can chide me for not following any of my rules that I just named above.
From what I can tell, here's how to get an advantage in a competitive reading like this:
1. Read something short. The shortest reading of the night can be the most memorable just within that.
2. Try not to go first, because the crowd gets rowdy. (If possible.)
3. Practice reading aloud so as not to stumble over words, or to be aware that your two named characters have rhyming names, or any other irregularities. (Those were both called out by the judges, which didn't seem very fair but there is a performative aspect that you can't overlook, I guess.)
4. Try to be the only funny reading in a wall of seriousness, or the only serious reading among the jokes. (Again, no way to really do this.)
5. Be mindful that everyone is looking at you while you are hearing the judges' comments. Nothing funny happened with that, but I can see how it would be possible to forget.
2. Try not to go first, because the crowd gets rowdy. (If possible.)
3. Practice reading aloud so as not to stumble over words, or to be aware that your two named characters have rhyming names, or any other irregularities. (Those were both called out by the judges, which didn't seem very fair but there is a performative aspect that you can't overlook, I guess.)
4. Try to be the only funny reading in a wall of seriousness, or the only serious reading among the jokes. (Again, no way to really do this.)
5. Be mindful that everyone is looking at you while you are hearing the judges' comments. Nothing funny happened with that, but I can see how it would be possible to forget.
Anyway, I didn't write down the individual names of the readers, and wish I had, but I can't find them now sadly. My favorite reader was #4 in the lineup (first man to read); my partner in crime picked #2.
They all read, and then while the judges deliberated there was a trivia round featuring, apparently, random members of the audience. If they had asked for volunteers I would have stepped up due to having just consumed one pilsner and having high self-esteem. As panelists missed questions related to the New School, Henry James and FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS BASIL E FRANKWEILER, my partner in crime suggested that I "should have Kanye'd the stage" at this point. Maybe I should have! I believe the person who got 1 question right won the whole thing. Then they announced the reading winner, who wasn't who I had predicted, although I liked his story all right.
The event was held in an exposed-brick event room at a new hotel in Williamsburg called the Wythe. I didn't see the hotel itself, but the back room features a very nice bar and easily fit maybe 75-100 people seated in rows with plenty of space around. To enter the space, though, we had to cut through a sketchy alley behind the hotel proper. I noticed walking back to the L train (for which the magazine is named) that we were close to the Brooklyn Bowl and the Brooklyn Brewery, both fun places to hang out, and I can't think of another hotel in Williamsburg itself, so if you are looking to visit, check it out.
While I was fact-checking this post (oh, you fancy, huh) I noticed that the final submission deadline to enter Literary Upstart is Monday, so I'm going to cut down a piece I conveniently have sitting around and send it in. Here's the information on that. Don't worry, if I get picked I will let you all know and you can chide me for not following any of my rules that I just named above.
24 May 2012
The author of this infuriating "Are Books Too Long?" op-ed is going to hate the cornerstone of my summer reading 2012 list. Hint, hint.
On PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN
Last month at the Tribeca Film Festival I went to a movie called "Keep the Lights On" that was particularly devastating. The film follows a filmmaker and a writer who meet on a phone-sex line and embark on a nine-year affair, but one's drug problem (predating the relationship) continually interrupts their happier times, culminating in an intervention and a long, torturous separation. Again and again, the drugs get in the way. Early in the film, the addict (played by Zachary Booth) is unafraid to do drugs in front of his new lover, who he has invited over to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend, but does so with a wink, because people in publishing love to gossip, he says.
Publishing seems no more gossip-prone than other occupations, but the remark passed through the fourth wall for anybody in the audience. "Keep The Lights On"'s writer-director Ira Sachs has openly admitted to the fact that the relationship chronicled was his, and this is his story. His ex's account, the 2010 memoir PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN, portrays Sachs as "Noah," the patient and considerate boyfriend whom drugs make peripheral.
To be clear, Bill Clegg's memoir covers only snippets of the relationship, concentrating on the last binges that presaged the visit to rehab that stuck (there were others). There are also scenes from Clegg's childhood breaking up his already slim memoir with hazy recollections of growing up. I didn't realize before I started it, but I came to the memoir looking for some shape of an answer. "Keep the Lights On" shows the circumstances of trying to live with someone who is an addict, but it doesn't address how this man becomes an addict.
PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT doesn't answer the whys of Clegg's addiction, but it doesn't seem fair to hold the book accountable for it. That it feels false, though, the text has to answer for. I don't doubt that it happened as he said, to the extent that his memory allows, but I found his account of the fall suspiciously clean, occasionally even elegant. In an excerpt I first read in New York magazine, Clegg is bound for the Berlin Film Festival to support "Noah," only to get sidetracked by the desire to get high a few more times, causing him to miss his original flight and a few after. (This incident appears in "Keep the Lights On" from Sachs' perspective, looking around nervously on the red carpet at the point of a career triumph.) The details that stick out are markers of paranoia -- at one point Clegg imagines himself being followed by "Penneys" who have all boarded the plane intending to arrest him in another country -- and, alternately, the extraordinary accommodations Clegg can make for himself in order to continue using. The first-class tickets and hotel accommodations are collateral damage, and he doesn't "enjoy" them by any sense of the word, but there's an unstated luxury in being able to cloak one's addiction in these scenes.
Is that because I have been so taken in by the cultural idea of the crack addict that I couldn't focus on the turmoil and toll that intensive drug use has on Clegg? I would define that idea like this: "Crack addicts are poor, often African-American, unable to hold down a job and tolerating extremely poor living conditions, who use to get away from their misery about their lives in some sense." Clegg is the cofounder of his own business, well-dressed and affluent, none of which makes him less of an addict nor makes his drug problem more serious. Is it any less depraved just because it takes place at the Gansevoort Hotel instead of a stranger's apartment in the Lower East Side projects? (Clegg goes to both of those as he spends out some $60,000 in his bank account on crack, vodka, escorts and hotels. The number sticks. What is the function of that number? How does it fill into what we know of his addiction, and his personality?)
PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT follows its narrator into a dark place, but these details throw off flares that are somehow intended to illuminate that picture. In the end, I found myself asking: which is worse, to be driven by an addiction that ruins everything in your life that you care about -- or to be the person who loves the addict, doesn't know how to help him, and watches him self-destruct?
Publishing seems no more gossip-prone than other occupations, but the remark passed through the fourth wall for anybody in the audience. "Keep The Lights On"'s writer-director Ira Sachs has openly admitted to the fact that the relationship chronicled was his, and this is his story. His ex's account, the 2010 memoir PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN, portrays Sachs as "Noah," the patient and considerate boyfriend whom drugs make peripheral.
To be clear, Bill Clegg's memoir covers only snippets of the relationship, concentrating on the last binges that presaged the visit to rehab that stuck (there were others). There are also scenes from Clegg's childhood breaking up his already slim memoir with hazy recollections of growing up. I didn't realize before I started it, but I came to the memoir looking for some shape of an answer. "Keep the Lights On" shows the circumstances of trying to live with someone who is an addict, but it doesn't address how this man becomes an addict.
PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT doesn't answer the whys of Clegg's addiction, but it doesn't seem fair to hold the book accountable for it. That it feels false, though, the text has to answer for. I don't doubt that it happened as he said, to the extent that his memory allows, but I found his account of the fall suspiciously clean, occasionally even elegant. In an excerpt I first read in New York magazine, Clegg is bound for the Berlin Film Festival to support "Noah," only to get sidetracked by the desire to get high a few more times, causing him to miss his original flight and a few after. (This incident appears in "Keep the Lights On" from Sachs' perspective, looking around nervously on the red carpet at the point of a career triumph.) The details that stick out are markers of paranoia -- at one point Clegg imagines himself being followed by "Penneys" who have all boarded the plane intending to arrest him in another country -- and, alternately, the extraordinary accommodations Clegg can make for himself in order to continue using. The first-class tickets and hotel accommodations are collateral damage, and he doesn't "enjoy" them by any sense of the word, but there's an unstated luxury in being able to cloak one's addiction in these scenes.
Is that because I have been so taken in by the cultural idea of the crack addict that I couldn't focus on the turmoil and toll that intensive drug use has on Clegg? I would define that idea like this: "Crack addicts are poor, often African-American, unable to hold down a job and tolerating extremely poor living conditions, who use to get away from their misery about their lives in some sense." Clegg is the cofounder of his own business, well-dressed and affluent, none of which makes him less of an addict nor makes his drug problem more serious. Is it any less depraved just because it takes place at the Gansevoort Hotel instead of a stranger's apartment in the Lower East Side projects? (Clegg goes to both of those as he spends out some $60,000 in his bank account on crack, vodka, escorts and hotels. The number sticks. What is the function of that number? How does it fill into what we know of his addiction, and his personality?)
PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT follows its narrator into a dark place, but these details throw off flares that are somehow intended to illuminate that picture. In the end, I found myself asking: which is worse, to be driven by an addiction that ruins everything in your life that you care about -- or to be the person who loves the addict, doesn't know how to help him, and watches him self-destruct?
23 May 2012
Filmbook-to-be: Trailer for "The Great Gatsby" (2012)
Carey Mulligan, what are you doing?
Okay, anyway -- as a heritage Baz loyalist who didn't feel anything from walking out of "Australia," I still want to see it. And DiCaprio's Gatsby, while I wasn't looking forward to it initially, will probably have some interesting wrinkles in it. We knew this wasn't going to be a chamber picture; it'll either be spectacular and great, or spectacular and completely unmoving. For me, I think it's too early to call which, although the Internet has already done that for you if you like.
For people griping about how the trailer contains anachronistic Kanye, you are missing the entire point and are recommended to go back and watch "Romeo and Juliet" (my favorite Luhrmann, for the record).
22 May 2012
This week, in things you can't unsee
"A full 8 of Modern
Library's Top 100 Fiction Novels were written by women. A whopping 3 of
the last 12 recipients of the Man Booker Prize have been women. And a
dominating 12 women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
since 1909. Finally, though, the giant tit-shadow of overappreciated
female authors will be cast aside in the name of paying more attention
to what the world would be like through the single, squinty eye of a
penis."
--Erin Gloria Ryan on Esquire's announcement that it would start publishing ebooks of "Fiction for Men."
--Erin Gloria Ryan on Esquire's announcement that it would start publishing ebooks of "Fiction for Men."
21 May 2012
"I was 35, and now, at 57, I hear someone mention that book virtually once a day. It was not the best book I ever wrote."
-Buzz Bissinger, you are killing me with this dissing of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. I beg you to own it, sir!
-Buzz Bissinger, you are killing me with this dissing of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. I beg you to own it, sir!
Reading the back of the bottle
On Saturday I went to an event associated with Lit Crawl NYC, a bar-reading series that started a few years ago.
I was only able to make it to one reading but I enjoyed it a lot despite the informality of the proceedings. Our host was La Casita, a yarn store and wine bar, and all of the authors' pieces dealt directly with knitting. Perri Klass read an essay about making a vest for her mother, who was in attendance and happy to show off; Beth Hahn writes Victorian mysteries paired with knitting patterns and showed off her own work, which was incredible; and Elinor Lipman read a poem about knitting. (Lipman I was familiar with before, but she's also writing a political poem a day on Twitter, which is swell.)
The Lit Crawl organizers were all decked out in matching A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN T-shirts (I want one!) and buzzed in and out taking pictures and introducing the writers as they came up. There was one patron who wandered in looking for help with yarn and she went away disappointed, but it was such a small store that there was really no place where she could have discussed her potential purchase with one of the store managers. She was a regular, though, so hopefully she'll be back.
Last year's Lit Crawl coincided with the Brooklyn Book Festival but featured bars in the East Village and SoHo; this year, it's been broken out into a Brooklyn edition in May and a Manhattan one in September. My one suggestion would be to spread the readings out over a longer time; in the two hours of Lit Crawl I had a staggering 13 choices and would loved to have seen more. What if the crawl started an hour or two earlier, with fewer events at each time? I'd drink to that.
I was only able to make it to one reading but I enjoyed it a lot despite the informality of the proceedings. Our host was La Casita, a yarn store and wine bar, and all of the authors' pieces dealt directly with knitting. Perri Klass read an essay about making a vest for her mother, who was in attendance and happy to show off; Beth Hahn writes Victorian mysteries paired with knitting patterns and showed off her own work, which was incredible; and Elinor Lipman read a poem about knitting. (Lipman I was familiar with before, but she's also writing a political poem a day on Twitter, which is swell.)
The Lit Crawl organizers were all decked out in matching A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN T-shirts (I want one!) and buzzed in and out taking pictures and introducing the writers as they came up. There was one patron who wandered in looking for help with yarn and she went away disappointed, but it was such a small store that there was really no place where she could have discussed her potential purchase with one of the store managers. She was a regular, though, so hopefully she'll be back.
Last year's Lit Crawl coincided with the Brooklyn Book Festival but featured bars in the East Village and SoHo; this year, it's been broken out into a Brooklyn edition in May and a Manhattan one in September. My one suggestion would be to spread the readings out over a longer time; in the two hours of Lit Crawl I had a staggering 13 choices and would loved to have seen more. What if the crawl started an hour or two earlier, with fewer events at each time? I'd drink to that.
18 May 2012
"I like people. I write about people. So when they want to tell me things, I'm willing to listen." --Richard Ford, handling an interview that can best be described as "assholic" in the New York Times. Yeah, when I get the chance to talk to someone famous, I always make sure to ask pointed questions and be extremely rude, especially if I can imply that he is an alcoholic and/ or general hater. Andrew Solomon: self-styled Borat, or bad journalist?
17 May 2012
Target audience?
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