1. Would you like to answer three questions and have your words cut up as part of a Brooklyn William S. Burroughs inspired music/strangeness event? The show is titled Third Mind, it’ll be on April 14 at the Lyceum in Park Slope, and it features David Aaron, Adriano Morez and Wax Machine.
2. FSG Poetry is going wacky with a live speed-writing contest on April 16 at the Strand Bookstore in Greenwich Village, New York featuring two poets who are quite esteemed, Paul Muldoon and Brad Leithauser. It’s a co-production with Quickmuse.com. This should be something. I’ll be there.
3. Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach is getting raves, though Mark Sarvas is skeptical. I caught a preview of this novel at Hunter College a few months ago, and I’ve been looking forward to the rest of it ever since.
4. I like the excerpt of Don Delillo’s soon-to-be-released novel that’s excerpted in the current New Yorker, though this time it’s Ed Champion who’s skeptical. I enjoy some Don Delillo more than other Don Delillo, but I’ve got hopes for this new book based on the first sample.
5. Chuck Pahlaniuk’s eighth novel, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey hits the stores on May 1. This I’m excited about.
6.There’s another literary-minded actor in The Office. Perhaps in emulation of his onscreen rival John Krasinski, who has been working on a film of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Riann Wilson is appearing in a Shakespeare Marathon at Hunter College in New York City this Thursday, April 9 at 6:30 at the Lenny Kaye Playhouse.
7. “I write against Gabriel Garcia Marquez”. Brave guy. Alvaro Enrigue at Words Without Borders.
8. The meaning of markets and branding.
8. Douglas Hofstadter is back.
9. What is it that makes a rock songwriter “literary”? I don’t know, but whatever that thing is that Patti Smith has and Bob Dylan has, Neil Young has it too. He’s just released a vault recording of a legendary and much-bootlegged acoustic concert from 1971, Live at Massey Hall. This journey through the past offers many revelations, like a bouncy take on the Brautigan-esque “On The Way Home” and an incisive, keening “Cowgirl in the Sand”. An intimate version of “There’s A World” emerges as possibly the most personal statement on this classic recording.
10. It was ten years ago today (also see Silliman).
4 Responses
Branding PalahniukI know I’ll
Branding Palahniuk
I know I’ll read the new Palahniuk. I thought Diary was top-notch. Choke and Haunted were also a lot of fun.
Good article about markets & branding, too.
keep on rockin in the free
keep on rockin in the free world
I read the first page of the Delillo excerpt; didn’t see a reason to go on to the next seven pages. For my 2 cents, one could find better fiction and more cutting-edge originality here: Pulp.net, Chizine.com, Noojournal.com, Voidmagazine.com, etc.
Not to say The New Yorker isn’t great, but they publish on name recognition. More fun to discover great new writers like Savory or Tremblay; new voices writing in the “now” style.
William S. BurroughsThis
William S. Burroughs
This sounds like a nice gig.
Good piece.
It was myfavorite bootleg
It was my
favorite bootleg album…I bought it the 1st day it was on the shelves at Orpheus records in Georgetown D.C……”I am a child,
I’ll last awhile, you can’t concieve of the pleasure in my smile.”