Pinky's Paperhaus

Wed: death, destruction and Shatner

Naguid Mahfouz has died; the Nobel prizewinning author was 94.

Around the time I moved to town, Pittsburgh mayor Bob O'Connor went to the hospital with a sore throat -- and was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. Each phase of his therapy has been documented in detail by local media (he will go home during chemo, wait, he won't); today the hospital announced it will no longer issue updates on his condition. Last we heard, the 61-year old mayor had an infection, seizures, and his condition had been downgraded to "serious."

It's been one year since Katrina; Maud Newton remembers the Mississippi coast and provides some class links.

OK, enough of that, time for some pop culture tawdriness. The best way to watch the William Shatner roast is in the clips on YouTube. (Nimoy is good, Takei works without notes, and Shatner himself does just fine. The comedians spend a little too much time ribbing each other, but are addictive nonethess).

Listening pleasure

The Agony Column has Harlan Ellison's WorldCon lecture (MP3) which starts with "the angrier I get the more demented I get," and quickly moves to "If by the end of my talk I have not insulted your physical infirmity, your sexual choice, your color, your race, your religion, your ethnicity, please, raise your hand, I will try to get to you." While Ed finds this desperate, I think he's got a lot more energy and hutzpah -- and, sure, obnoxiousness -- than most writers, and easily buckets more than most 72-year-old writers. Which makes for a fun listen. And perhaps it's safest to keep him on the other side of your computer screen...

Two more podcasts from Bat Segundo: Jeff VanderMeer and Robert Birnbaum. Wait! I'm still catching up with JSF!

And a debut litblog podcast from Collected Miscellany - a conversation with Brock Clark.

Tripping the Thursday fantastic

An interesting discussion is on in the comments at Shaken & Stirred place over book reviewing and criticism vs. negativity. Gwenda, Colleen and Niall all make worthy and thoughtful points.

Write one NY Times piece about tennis and the people get angry...Ed Champion asks, Is David Foster Wallace washed up?

Largehearted Boy links to an Elliott Smith MP3, of "I Didn't Understand," live with Jon Brion in LA in 1998. Or if you'd rather laugh than cry, Hillary Carlip creates a soundtrack for her book Queen of the Oddballs in LHB's Book Notes.

Claire Messud talks to Michelle Huneven in today's LA Weekly (via TEV). Messud's new book The Emperor's Children hasn't made it out of my to-be-read bookshelf yet; since so many love it maybe I'll stop procrastinating.

The Sea is out in paperback, if you haven't gotten your John Banville on yet.

Casting mysteries

So when they had the open casting call for the film version of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, I got up and went. Nextbook was kind enough to ask me to tell them all about it; here's the story so far.

One of the reasons I went was the announcement that they were looking for extras for a punk club scene, circa 1983. My hair is pretty darn red right now. So I dressed up like it was 1983, not like my own shivering, wanna-be new-waver in New Hampshire 1983, but like the cool kids in LA dressed. Yes, I know my fishnets are ripped. Duh.

Nextbook does great literary coverage and I'm grateful that they didn't hold my undeniable WASPiness against me, seeing as they're a gateway to Jewish literature, culture and ideas. I guess the fact that Mysteries of Pittsburgh author Michael Chabon is Jewish is enough.

Crapometer, I hear ya callin'

Miss Snark, the literary agent with a blog of gold, is opening up her Crapometer doors again. In the Crapometer Miss Snark seriously, snarkily and deliriously discusses fiction submissions as openly as agents might do over a bucket of gin. Last time, she went through more than a hundred, from gritty family dramas to dragons-and-bodice-ripper fantasies; her analyses were invaluable. And addictive. Hysterical, of course.

This is just the warning shot, tho. The first 100 submissions (cover letter & first page, 750 words max) over the transom when the Crapometer officially launches sometime at the end of the month will get the full Miss Snark treatment. Gentlemen, start your spell checkers. (via Ed)

Shiver me timbers

Ahoy, mateys! The extraordinarily talented Chris Abani headlines the Vermin on the Mount reading series, punnily calling itself Pyrats of Chinatown in LA tonight. Also on the bill are Teka-Lark Lo, a snappy poet who's got something, plus novelist Karen Palmer and poet Carol Novack. If I were within 2000 miles of Los Angeles I'd show up; in my book, 132 miles is definitely within striking distance (this means you, Tod Goldberg.)

The LitBlog Coop pick for summer is Michael Martone's Michael Martone, and this week two more Martoney posts went live: the Michael Martone podcast interview and a separate e-mail conversation for those who are MP3-averse. Martone! Martone! Martone!

This Tuesday the 22nd Joe Meno will be in Pittsburgh to read from his new book is The Boy Detective Fails. Also reading are fellow Chicagoan Todd Dills (Sons of the Rapture) and Mickey Hess, who I am failing to provide a link for. It's happening Artists Image Resources, 518 Foreland St. Hopefully my car will be out of the shop so I can do what I always do in Pittsburgh and drive around lost for a while before arriving at my destination. Which in this case is a place called AIR.

That's the way to white trash it, baby

The brilliant Jason Toney puts up "officially the whitest thing I've ever posted" on his blog, Negro Please, and it is so excellent I'm teary-eyed. Kelly Clarkson clambers on stage with her boyfriend to sing along with hairmetal cover band Metal Skool and it's boozy and while definitely well shot and edited, feels unscripted. MetaFilter loves it, I love it. How do you do white trash right? Swig from the Chivas bottle and sing "Sweet Child O' Mine."

In more Friday-is-the-Day-to-Watch-Videos-on-the-Interwebs news, I caught this funny short Everything I Know About Drugs I Learned From Hollywood on LAist -- it's an excellently compiled drugtaking collage from movies and TV. Defamer thinks it's funny, which is good for the budding LA filmmaking collective pixelpushers in general and director/editor Elina Shatkin in particular (go, Elina!) Frank Sinatra writhing in withdrawl from The Man With The Golden Arm? You know it's in there. As is Punky Brewster asking the local ponytailed pusher about "Nose candy." Trust me. The first time you watch is free.

Thursday whirl

The Man Booker longlist gets a lovely overview and thorough follow-up from Max. Meanwhile, the prize has thrown discussion boards online, where a popular topic is Banville Is God - has Mark been busy?

Man Booker nominee David Mitchell (for Black Swan Green) is podcast in the second part by Bat Segundo. The first part was most excellent and I'm loading the second half onto the iPod.

With all the dust-up about Marisha Pessl, I just have to ask ... But can she dance? Because Andrea Seigel sure can, as she's demonstrating at California readings for her second novel, To Feel Stuff. Check out Andrea's Paperhaus podcast at right for a peek into the work in progress.

Not sure about dancing, but Owen King can write while listening to Wings. He tells Largehearted Boy that it's not about quality, it's about comfort: "Writing is a nervous business; for the most part, your only supervisor is yourself, and that’s the same guy who ratified this ridiculous career in the first place. This is why the later works of Paul McCartney are a perfect soundtrack for writing — they are the antithesis of nervous." That's enough to make me hop out and pick up a copy of his debut collection, We're All In This Together.

Galleycat's hotties of publishing contest is on! The ladies had more fun with the glamour shots than the men, I'm afraid. Where's a little Norman Mailer bluster when you need it?

There's a high school meme going around and if it makes you think of Emilio, Molly, Judd and Anthony Michael, you're in luck. Don't You Forget About Me - a film lookng back at The Breakfast Club and the better-than-average teen films of the '80s - is in the works (via Stereogum). Y'know, I wrote the John-Hughes-as-Auteur paper in college, too.

Friday linkage

Beware the indie rock tastemaker (via Stereogum)

Punk Kansas? This and more are promised in the Bat Segundo podcast interview with author Kellie Wells

Blogging.la counts down the top 25 fictional Angelenos, including Joe Friday (#7), Jim Rockford (#20) and Norma Desmond (#20). The top 4 are pending; I wager Chinatown's Jake Gittes will make an appearance, and hope that one literary character -- say, Maria Wyeth? -- does, too.

Congrats to another litblogger turned dad: Rake makes progress in the form of Laila Rose.

The Syntax of Things reports on Marisha Pessl's Durham NC appearance and has only nice things to say. As for the upcoming NY Times review -- it makes a few snarky comments about bloggers, and Mark and Ed and Ron take issue.

 

one sentence roundup

Alan DeNiro: Leaving aside the quality of American Vertigo itself, having Garrison Keillor review Bernard-Henri Levy is like having a complete tool review a French philosopher. -

Thomas Pynchon: Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

LitBlog Coop: The character is witheringly snobbish, but he’s a funny and perceptive snob.

Bookdwarf: I still can't believe I spent two hours with the man who should have been president.

LAist: Her only rquest on her birthday was that we go see the Flaming Lips at the Bowl and steal a bottle of wine from someone in the box seats.