Condalmo

Zen and the art of bookshelf balance.

Because you are an individual:

One might fairly wonder what the upside of this approach is, over, say, a perfectly stable bookshelf. To echo Jonah Berger’s point in the column, regarding watches that do a less-than-optimal job of telling you what time it is, this seems like another object whose main value is that it “provides more information” about the owner. And part of that value is that not many others will swarm in to buy the thing and water down its identity value, because most people will want a shelf that doesn’t move.

Speaking of that line about counterfunctional watches “providing information” about those who wear them, Marginal Utility has this amusing reaction: “Exactly, it screams loud and clear that you are an idiot.”

The watches mentioned are "hand-less watches" (no, not digital) that are being sold now - and, apparently, bought:

Consider, for instance, the Uno, from Botta, the German watch brand. It has only one hand. This item, which sort of suggests what time it is, can cost almost $1,000. Another example is the 900 Abacus watch, a $150 object featuring a tiny ball that rolls around a completely blank face; if you stand still and position the watch horizontally, the ball supposedly moves to the appropriate spot on the edge of the face where the numbers would be. Then there’s the NOW Watch, which has no hands or numbers, just the word “Now” where the time should be. Or the Timeless Bracelet, designed by Ina Seifart: a link-style watchband with a traditional foldover clasp, it has no face at all, just an open spot where you would expect to see one...

Counterfunctionality is precisely what makes such things effective identity markers. Berger hit upon the category’s appeal while looking into “product abandonment” — that is, the way that certain consumers drop trends when certain others pick up on them. Those particularly interested in expressing difference might be drawn to something the masses are less likely to “poach” — even if that’s because it’s annoying or inconvenient. “Most people want a watch that tells time, and they want to be able to see indoors,” Berger continues. “So to do the opposite is a good way to separate yourself from the masses.” In other words, it’s not that a watch with one hand, or no hands, has no value. It’s that the value it has is unrelated to the telling of time.

I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

Lydia Davis and Raymond Carver.

I suspect that Lydia Davis would come down on the side of the editor in the whole fat-Carver/skinny-Carver brouhaha. Might be a stretch on my part to call her anti-revisionist, but maybe not; my suspicion is based on her holding firm to the boring title:

Ways was written in the summer of 1966, when I was nineteen, for a fiction workshop led by Grace Paley during a summer session at Columbia University. (Fiction workshops were much less common in those days, and this was the only one I ever enrolled in.) I reproduce it here more or less as it was written: I have corrected a few spelling mistakes (e.g. “boothes,” “tableclothes,” and some of the Spanish words); changed the spelling of Louis (English or French) to Luis (Spanish); and reduced the capacity of the opera house from 12,000 to 3,000. If it were my choice now, I would not title the story Ways, which is vague and unexciting.

Ways appears in the inaugural issue of The International Literary Quarterly.  I haven't read anything there yet, but expect it will be clear and thrilling.  As for the brouhaha, I can't really come to a cogent argument one way or the other; exhaustion makes me wishy-washy.  My first inclination, though, is that they should just publish the fat-Carver version - what harm can it do?  It's not as though English professors will be spilling into the streets, rending their blazers. 

"The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules."

"Rembrandt and Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Gauguin, possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not powerful wills.  They loved the range of materials they used.  The work's possibilities excited them; the field's complexities fired their imaginations.  The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules.  They learned their fields and then loved them.  They worked, respectfully, out of their love and knowledge, and they produced complex bodies of work that endure.  Then, and only then, the world flapped at them some sort of hat, which, if they were still living, they ignored as well as they could, to keep at their tasks."

Excerpt of an excerpt.  (Annie Dillard, The Writing Life)  

(That's blogging at it's best, isn't it, when you're excerpting excerpts?  I see awards and financial windfalls in my future.) 

Language architect.

Here's an excerpt from "The Architecture of Thought" by one Lydia Davis:

“Please break up these long sentences” is the plaintive request that a translator of Proust hears at least once. No, the book is really more about thought than plot. And in any case, in Swann’s Way at least, there is a nice balance. Eighty percent of the sentences are not excessively long. The sentences must be kept intact, long and short, and they must retain as many elements of their complexity as possible, the parallel structures, the pairs of phrases, the triplets, the alliteration and assonance, the meter. But above all the intricate architecture of syntax by which Proust inserts his parenthetical remarks and digressions, delaying as long as possible the outcome of the sentence. So this means in the end trying to preserve not only the ease of a sentence when it is easy, but also the difficulty of a sentence when it is difficult, and it means asking oneself the same question with each sentence, though with a different problem in each: If I can’t produce, for example, the hexameter which Proust has so beautifully embedded in this phrase, by just how much will I have changed his thought?

Great piece.  What's that?  You want more?  Via This Space:

...The Cahiers Series from Sylph Editions. Details of the fifth, due next month, have just been released, and it looks particularly desirable:

The cahier comprises three linked pieces by the translator and short story writer, Lydia Davis. First is 'A Proust Alphabet', which gives an account of several words and issues of particular interest, encountered during the author’s recent translating of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. There follows a short article on the French thinker and novelist Maurice Blanchot, entitled 'The Problem in Summarising Blanchot'. Finally comes a series of dreams and dreamlike moments, recounted in 'Swimming in Egypt: Dreams while Awake and Asleep'. The cahier is accompanied by photographs by Ornan Rotem.

Throat really hurts tonight. Maybe it's the strep. Yeah, it's probably the strep. Probably really contagious. Better call out sick.

   

Nobody told me this was happening tomorrow. Why has nobody told me?

People.  I can't do this all on my own.  Some people have their Doctor Who, some people their Battlestar Gallactica.  Me, I like it where there's always music in the air, and the birds sing a pretty song.

Observations:

• That is not the recipe for the cherry pie.  What ironic staffer came up with that nonsense?
• Should you buy it?  This will convince you.  If you need convincing.
• The "alumni enjoying current success" section is good for a laugh.  Outdated!  (Ferrer and "that guy who played Windham Earle" were recently reunited on Bionic Woman.  So I hear.)  Meanwhile, where's Andy? Hank got Lost.
• The first soundtrack CD is probably my most-listened CD, ever.  The second CD - from the movie - has its moments, but also some unbearable clunkers.  In what's sure to be the only review of this CD anywhere - as I'm likely to be one of about nine people who actually seek this out - I'll let you know.
• Lastly:  the work day just ended, my friends.  (UPDATE: As of right now, I can't seem to get my "midget widget" (seen below, after the click) to operate correctly.  God willing, I'll never again have occasion to put those words together in that particular sequence.)

Fup, 1988-2007.

Sad news from Powells:

Fup, the resident cat at Powell's Technical Books, passed away on October 25. She was 19 years old. She continued to greet her admiring public to the end, when her health failed and there was no choice but to put her  to sleep. Her lifelong veterinarian made the trip out to the store to perform the task and Fup died peacefully at home with several of her longtime co-workers present.

Fup was born on or about June 30, 1988. She was adopted as a kitten by the Technical Store's first manager, so her exact birthdate is unknown and she was always quite coy about that. As for the origin of her name, legend has it that the manager's sister had a cat named Puff, so he sort of spelled that backwards. There was also a book titled Fup by Jim Dodge, published in 1983, which may have played into it as well...

Follow the lead link to read the whole post.  They request donations to the Oregon Humane Society in lieu of cards/flowers.

Eggers' new book: Wild Things.

Alternate post subject:  "What is the ... He Did Whaaaat?!"  Rejected because, well, you can see why.  We've got to have some law around here.*

This would be considerably more interesting if, in fact, Eggers was writing a novelization of this.  I'd like to see how he writes that scene in the - ...okay, never mind that, here's the real skinny: 

The Eggers book, an adult novel based on Maurice Sendak´s classic Where the Wild Things Are was actually acquired by Ecco last winter, but kept quiet until now. Foreign rights are in play at Frankfurt and Ecco publisher Dan Halpern is predicting, "I think it`s going to be his biggest book. I think it´s going to be huge." Ecco is publishing the book in fall 2008, to coincide with the Spike Jonze movie adaptation based on Sendak´s book, for which Eggers wrote the screenplay.

So... a novelization of a movie version of a book? 

...

I don't know what to say about this, except it seems brave - brash? - and of course I'm curious about what he's done with it.  What will the cover art look like?  What will it be called?  Is Sendak on board?  (An Eggers/Sendak collaboration?)  Will the novel of the movie of the book eventually be made back into a children's book?  You know hungry Eggers-bashers are already drafting their angry/scornful/mocking blog posts.

Related: The first movie.

* Only when one is this tired is quoting Jason Priestley advisable.

Your small literary magazine.

In case you missed it from yesterday's roundup, this bears repeating:  TimeWarner and corporate superfriends lobbied to leave themselves unaffected, but small publications are hit hard by a rise in postal rates, between 20 and 30 percent.  Congress is holding hearings on October 30, and the fine folks at Free Press are working to collect over 100,000 signatures by today to get some traction with Congress.  Here's the details.  Head over to the Free Press site and do your part. 

John Updike's wife abuses him.

Strep throat and general disgruntlement has me in the mood to break some wildly distorted headline news here at Condalmo.  Let's lighten the mood!  Freeman and Updike in a wide-ranging and poorly-checked interview:

Q: I recall reading about you offloading some of your reviewing library of the past forty years recently – do you ever miss those books or have they made room for more?

A: You would know better than I that there is no ending of books. That was just my wife’s attempt to keep an orderly house. I’ve actually had to go back to stashing a few books in the barn, because the shelves here are full. I love books, but I don’t love them enough to constantly order and reshuffle them. My own books have grown frighteningly – I just remember when it was a tidy little shelf the Carpenter’s Hen, The Poorhouse Fair, Rabbit, Run, Pigeon Feather and the Centaur, that’s what five titles? And those early books are the ones that seem to get assigned in classes, and I could have stopped then with no detriment, but now the shelf is long and it’s a storage problem. I do miss sometimes those books that were given away – you never know when you are going to need a book, even when you are a fiction writer…in a way it’s cruel to make authors cull.

Emphasis added in attempt to justify screaming hyperbole post subject.  But, you know - books.  Come on!  Do you think Victoria Beckham makes David Beckham weed out his rare soccer ball collection?  I doubt it!  For the love of God, he's a man of letters!  (Updike, not Beckham.)  I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Then again: wouldn't it be great to mooch something from Updike?  Almost as soul-satisfying as The Dalek.

Having your Kerouac spayed and neutered.

Why you shouldn't bother with the forthcoming release of Kerouac's diaries:

Of course, when reading The Reagan Diaries for clues to what Reagan was actually doing there in the Oval Office — and there are some, buried amid the trivia and mountains of movie titles — one must keep in mind that this tome was whittled down from five large, leather-bound volumes, which Reagan — the only president of the twentieth century to have kept a diary, we keep being reminded — maintained diligently, not as an intended historical document (though he must have known that people would turn to it one day) but as a sort of “memory book” so that he and his beloved Nancy could page through it together and recall the good times during their retirement years. (Sadly, the former president’s Alzheimer’s put the kibosh on that sweet autumnal vision.) The work at hand is itself not so much an historical document as a popular bestseller assembled by a popularizing historian best known for his history-tour bus rides with his college students and for his worshipful attitude towards any American figure of recent decades who seems to strike him as glamorous, a hero-worship that transcends politics. (Brinkley has also edited Hunter Thompson’s letters and is now editing Jack Kerouac’s diaries for publication, and wrote a book about the Kennedyesque wartime heroism of John Kerry; he made an especially ridiculous ass of himself in the wake of John Kennedy, Jr.’s death, running from talk show to talk show insisting that the passing of George’s publisher was some major signal event in the life of his generation.) Brinkley has reportedly cleaned up countless misspellings in the original text but felt compelled to retain Reagan’s habit of censoring such G-rated cussword as “damn” and “hell” by writing them as “d_mn” and “h_ll”.

Given the options available - here, in the space age! - shouldn't the publishers of these various diaries make available online the complete, not-ridiculously-edited version?  For pay, or for free?  There's something to be said for good editing, but the diary isn't meant to be edited.  A glimpse inside the private thoughts of a man (and whether or not these private thoughts should be released posthumously is another matter) should be left as is, warts and boring parts and all.  Less interesting, maybe, but more true - and if it doesn't pass publishing muster without editing, then maybe you shouldn't publish it.  Even if it was Ann Charters editing it, and not Mr. Vanilla (seen here mired in the 1980's) (look at that picture and tell me you don't hear the Knight Rider theme music), I don't think it would be a representative document.  My two cents.   

Roundup.

What the hell, it's not like I have enough energy for actual content.  Briefly:

• Jesus riding a dinosaur.  Vote Republican!
• A history, not by historians, of Canadian war:  The Candian Letters & Images Project.
• Darby knows when to hold 'em.
• Largehearted Extremely Old Man.  (Sorry.)
• National Novel Reading Month to begin soon.
• Mental illness in the popular media.
• Against the postage rate hikes that threaten those small litmags you love.  Act now.
• Finally, did you know?:

 

Have you seen Yunior's grades?

Okay, now I've had my first Junot Diaz Experience.  (It's only a matter of time before someone cries foul with all this audiobook/story/pod reliance on my part.  To you I somnolently say: 80 hour work week!)  I see the goodness that is Diaz.  This is a great piece, deceptively simple, but he nails it completely, doesn't he?  So matter of fact, so conversational; so revealing.  I'll be pulling Drown from the shelf and adding it to the pile.

The chat after the story noted how some audiences reacted harshly to the story.  There's always a few readers who can't separate the story from the author.  (In some rare cases, this is true of the author himself.)  It seems silly, getting angry at Diaz because he nails all the details of being a teenager so well.  Angry at him for being a good writer?  Should he write about sensitive pony-tail men?  Being Maine White Bread, I obviously can't say I see myself in the story, but he gets the mood of the story so perfectly - it took me back to the later high school days of pool halls and "Rocket Queen" on the jukebox and misguided adventures with Westbrook girls.  First beers, confusion about the opposite sex, the whole bit. 

The audio version has the amusing benefit of a woman reading the women's dialog.  I think it puts the story in a different light - actually having the female's voice in there, whereas reading it you'd more likely get it in Yunior's voice, as he's narrating the story.  I'll have to read it and get back to you.

And wouldn't you know it: I finish listening to the podcast and decide to scan through the FM band, and there you have it: "Sweet Child O' Mine."  I'm pleased to report that my tiny mp3 player does, in fact, go to eleven.

St. Borges.

As you might suspect, I've had little time for reading since I finished the excellent The Company of Ghosts.  (I have Salvayre's The Power of Flies ARC to read, but haven't felt up for it, yet.)  I've ducked in and out of Grace Paley, Barthelme, and Tobias Wolff story collections and may not get into another novel before McCarthy's Men in Space arrives.  (Any day now.)

After overcoming some technical difficulties, I've got my mp3 player to accept audiobooks and the like.  Just as of yesterday, in fact, so when I went to work last night, I had a hearty helping of Wolff's Old School and three of the New Yorker fiction podcasts - Paley again, Barthelme again, and "The Gospel According to Mark" by Borges and read by Paul Theroux.  Now that's a damned good story.  The end made me laugh - so perfect, so unexpected.  I listened to it again to pick out all the clues that had been there all along.  ("She had a little lamb" - genius!) 

I had thought about writing something somewhat-lengthy about it, but on three hours of sleep, it would come out... poorly. 

At any rate, if you haven't subscribed to the New Yorker podcast, it's in your best interest.  I think it's monthly, and in addition to the three storytellers I mentioned above, there's one with Junot Diaz reading one of his own stories.  I know you love Junot Diaz.  (I have yet to read Drown.  Might as well come clean here.) 

As the New Yorker has decided to be irritating about not giving you a link to a page with all the podcasts and details (unless you want to go directly to iTunes, which you may in fact want), and my efforts to copy the links to the individual pieces have failed, I offer you this link; you'll need to scroll 3/4 of the way down the page to find the "Fiction Podcast" section.  Word on the street is, they'll be updating the site to be Netscape Navigator friendly soon.

TypePad is roughing up the feeds.

My apologies for recent ugliness of posts - apparently, TypePad is having some trouble with the feeds.  For those inclined to be interested in the details, I'll include them after the jump.  For those just wanting magic, here's the better feed to use for this site. 

Stars.

I wasn't aware of this until today, but you can apparently follow along with my Roundup sidebar via feed reader.  It's probably the most updated area of this site, so here's the link if you're interested.

Eggers' Wild Things.

My eldest daughter has come into the age where she can enjoy Where the Wild Things Are.  (Proud parent aside: she noted the other day that when Max is sailing on his boat, the wind is blowing into the sails from one direction but the flag is being blown in the other direction.  She was confused.  I still am.)  Movie adaptations of books for kids have a long, storied history of completely ruining everything (everything!); maybe this one will get it right.

In transforming the 338-word story of Where the Wild Things Are into a 111-page screenplay, Eggers and Jonze have fleshed out the story not, unexpectedly, with wild plot developments, and not, thankfully, with densely packed pop-fiction references. Instead Where the Wild Things Are is filled with richly imagined psychological detail, and the screenplay for this live-action film simply becomes a longer and more moving version of what Maurice Sendak's book has always been at heart: a book about a lonely boy leaving the emotional terrain of boyhood behind.

We certainly have our problems with Dave Eggers's writing at times, but one thing he has always been able to do is to recall with great specificity the excitement, small joys, and great disappointments of childhood. In many ways, between his work at 826 Valencia and his most recent novel, What Is the What, his infatuation and identification with childhoods ordinary and extreme has remained at the center of his career. This ability to conjure up authentic moments of boyish emotion is combined, in Where the Wild Things Are, with Spike Jonze's devilishly inventive visual sense to create something pretty amazing.

I don't know, I'm still pretty dubious.  Why does something wonderful need to be made bigger and better if it's already wonderful?  Do we need the psychological themes explored, or is it better to let it come up between the lines when you're reading it to your kid?  Does anyone question the idea anymore that a movie being made out of a book is a good thing?  I assert that I would be asking these potentially curmudgeonly yet important questions were I not exhausted.  I don't want to see posters of Max holding a Big Mac. (Unless the Happy Meal toy is a "Dave Eggers: screenwriter" action figure, maybe on a small Grimace moped of some sort.  In that case, full steam ahead, merchandisers!  Realize your potential!)

We certainly have our problems with Dave Eggers's writing at times, but one thing he has always been able to do is to recall with great specificity the excitement, small joys, and great disappointments of childhood. In many ways, between his work at 826 Valencia and his most recent novel, What Is the What, his infatuation and identification with childhoods ordinary and extreme has remained at the center of his career. This ability to conjure up authentic moments of boyish emotion is combined, in Where the Wild Things Are, with Spike Jonze's devilishly inventive visual sense to create something pretty amazing.

A science of sleep.

This past week, I started a second full time job.  During the day, I do case management for people with severe mental illness; at night, I'm a typesetter.  This second job goes from 5:00pm to 1:30am, at which point I make the 35 minute drive home.  I feel like I went on an especially unrewarding beer binge.  (All the hangover and general cognitive stupor, without any of the brief feeling of camaraderie/fun/hooking up with potentially unsavory characters.)   As such, expect posting - at least until one job or the other falls apart, or I do - around here to be infrequent, possibly incomprehensible, and likely written from a place of very deep irritation with the world around me.

Of course, with all notices regarding posting frequency, this may prove completely untrue.

On writing reviews with a tight deadline and little time to form an opinion.

I'd like to be sympathetic, but if everyone wasn't pissing all over themselves to get a review of In Rainbows to press in a hurry, you wouldn't be getting dreck like this, the lead on Rolling Stone's "review":

These wily boys may have a secret album-title exchange program with Kelly Clarkson, but everything else about In Rainbows is typically hard-rocking Radiohead. Like every other Radiohead album except Kid A — still their most famous album, but they only made it once — In Rainbows has uptempo guitar songs and moody acoustic ballads, full of headphone-tweaking sound effects.

What reader is this nonsense aimed at, exactly?  Was it so important to have RS weigh in so soon (quick! before an online upstart trumps us! we're Rolling Stone, damn it) that this was given the go ahead? 

Here's your link, but allow me to sum up: "It's the best ever, name drop, name drop, how much the reviewer paid, name drop, sweeping generalization, name drop, it's the best ever!!!" 

This sort of bending to "the way things are now" (get the review out there fast, keep it brief for the online/short attention span crowd, keep it bland and by-the-numbers) instead of giving the album a considered review benefits nobody. 

"I LOL at your meaningless paean to Basildon Bond"

Similarly frustrated by rampant stupidity and insincerity, Simon Jenkins - his toupee blowing in the wind of change - bemoans the emoticon and email:

I confess to seeing the problem. I have seldom sent a personal email or text message which I have not afterwards, in some degree, regretted. The old-fashioned pen slowed the transition from natural spoken word (and intended meaning) to unnatural script. It gave time for consideration, as did the manual typewriter. Writing involved effort. A word was pondered before being put to paper, packaged and sent through the post. I remember the ancient sandbox calligraphers in Chen Kaige's film, The Emperor and the Assassin, and became more careful when I handwrote anything. There was poetry as well as prose in those glorious characters. We should treat letters and words with respect.

In comparison the computer keyboard, especially for touch-typists, is an invisible piano on which we play instantly and extempore. First musings race into fully-formed words and sentences with no pause for revision, let alone perfection. As soon as they are on screen they acquire validity. Over them hovers the dreaded send button, itching to be pressed and behind which lurk a hundred links, addresses and possible misdirections. Send is always pressed too soon.

Interesting, that letters and email both carry the same alphabet set, yet email is so dead. 

The subject, incidentally, is from the busy comments section of the post, where Simon is scolded for being old-fashioned by a few dozen angry pimply teenagers, cleverly wielding their emoticons (as in, ha-ha!, I put an emoticon in my response, and that teaches you a lesson!).  A few brave souls side with Simon:

...the medium of emails naturally encourages initial slipshod thinking.

Of course, most people will re-read emails, perhaps several times before sending them. It doesn't stop me, as apparently for Simon, often thinking (one minute, an hour, a day or more later?) that I should have waited and expressed things differently, tweaked it a little more. With emails my words do tend to flood onto the screen, only to be edited and re-hashed and pasted around, at the moment or later. This is because the medium makes it possible: you can, and you know you can, instantaneously edit and change and modify easily, with little pain.

If you're writing a letter - the classic pen-to-Basildon Bond process which some contributors appear, oddly, to harbour such intense feelings of loathing toward - you MUST think more carefully, be more disciplined in your thoughts and how to express them: no one is going to re-write a (normal) letter ten times before sending it off. You MUST get that sentence clear in your head BEFORE setting it down. You cannot, reasonably, put pen to paper if you do not have a clear idea of what you want to say, and HOW you want to say it.

(link via.)

It's the stupid, stupid.

From deep within the roiling dark clouds, a glimmer: StupidFilter.

The concept behind the StupidFilter Project originated during a conversation between Gabriel Ortiz and Paul Starr. StupidFilter was conceived out of necessity. Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy. In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people. Then, Eternal September hit and we were lost in the noise. The advent of user-driven web content has compounded the matter yet further, straining our tolerance to the breaking point.

It's time to fight back.

The solution we're creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we're collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

Eventually, once the research is completed, we plan to release core engine source code for incorporation into content management systems, blogs, wikis and the like. Additionally, we plan to develop a fully implemented Firefox plugin and a Wordpress plugin.

LongRiposte.

The folks at Ward Six have responded to my recent lack of enthusiasm about the LongPen.  I won't excerpt the first (the comment) as it's short and you can read the whole thing; here's some of the second (you'll have to read the whole post to make sense of the Weird Dude reference):

It isn't that Condalmo's wrong, per se, but he is missing the point that author autographs overall are just kind of pointless. And if you're as famous as Margaret Atwood, you could spend your whole damned life sitting at a pressboard buffet table gazing up in exhaustion at the Weird Dude, and why not make something that can obliterate that experience from your life?

First: am I Condalmo?  Or is the site Condalmo?  These are unanswered questions.

No, I agree that autographs are by-and-large pointless, and certainly beside the point made by both responses, that the experience of the story is the key point.  I have two books signed by authors, and those signatures were not requested - the authors simply signed the books before sending them to me.  I appreciate their doing it, the personal touch - like receiving a note, instead of a 8x10 glossy picture of Kurt Russell.  (What would Kurt Russell write in a note to me?  Kurt, are you reading this site?)  The Weird Dude gets his just desserts when he waits for the LongPen signature, as I doubt that would hold anywhere near the potential future eBay value. 

Where autographs are of value are to people of a deeply sentimental nature, for whom a picture with the author, a hand-written note (not Dalek-written) in the book, means a lot.  In JRL's own words, it commemorates a pleasant human interaction. 

Sentiment aside, getting a signature may be superfluous to the real heart of reading and writing, but what value is there in cheapening it?  Unless the LongPen is an insidious way to undermine the whole "getting it signed" value system, and not just monetary value, so that no authors will be pestered to sign anything.  As for Atwood: isn't she kind of in a place in her life where she doesn't really need to sign anything if she doesn't want to?  Aren't all authors, for that matter?  If it's an inconvenience to travel across the country for book signings, then don't do it.  But don't try to sell the reader on a cheap substitute that removes the human interaction from the equation.

--- 

In related news, you can sign up to receive "love letters" from well-known authors, including Margaret Atwood, who will be submitting her letter via LongPen, at which point it will be printed, overnighted to someone at the Times, transcribed into e-mail, and then forwarded along to you.  I put a lot of effort into this small joke and I hope you are feeling less let down by the result than I am.

Why the "Radiohead model" is exciting.

Let's all hold hands and listen: 

What I'm most excited about though is fan bases discovering an album all together at the same time again. That strengthens music fanatic communuties immensely.  Whether you consider this a collective conscious phenomenon or good old gang mentality nothing beats experiencing a musical event with a shitload of like minded people. 

In recent years it has become the norm that an album gets discovered by fans in the following order:  1) The press are issued their copies of the album. They begin to form opinions but can't talk about them online yet. One of them, however, is bold enough to leak it online. "Fuck it," he or she says to themselves, "I don't care if I get fired. I'm going to be a hero on Oink." This leads to 2) The computer savy early-leak-listener-club all breaking their wrists to either dismiss or praise the album first on their message board of choice. 3) The die-hard-fans who swear off early leak listening finally hear it the day it comes out in stores. A new wave of discussion and evaluation rolls in. The reviews come out. 4) New fans or casual fans find the album eventually also and chime in as well. Now, that's dividing up a fan base's initial new album experience into four segments over at least six months of time. Imagine combining all four segments within a the span of three weeks. Which scenario do you think is more likely to cause cultural explosions? Which scenario do you think will create a more lively, unified fan base? And what sounds like more fun to you?

Robert Walser alternate cover.

BookMooch flagged me to let me know a copy of Robert Walser's Selected Stories was available.  I pounced; I was told that the cover is not the NYRB cover.  Did I still want the book?  A quick Google search on my end was not helpful, but the moochee found it.

Sold!  (well, mooched.)

Tides that they try to swim against.

When I heard the beginning, I nearly clicked away, thinking "not that overplayed thing again."  (Someone once called that song "our generation's "With or Without You" - I can't even begin to respond to something like that.  I used up all my (self-)righteous snark for the week on Oprah and Atwood.) 

I'm glad I kept listening.  This is joyous and troubling, in strange combinations.

Hoodwinked into the movie theaters by Oprah Winfrey.

Do you see how I included her last name?  That's the way we practice civil disobedience here at Condalmo.

I, for one, love love, and love loving love.  It's all I need.  The Loving Excerpt, emphasis added:

CHICAGO (AP) — Oprah Winfrey has picked "Love in the Time of Cholera," the epic love story by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as her next book club selection.

"If you love love, this book is the best love story ever," Winfrey said Friday on her daytime talk show.

The novel by the Colombian-born Garcia Marquez was published in 1985. Set on the Caribbean coast of South America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it tells the tale of a woman and two men, and an unrequited love that spans 50 years.

"It is so beautifully written that it really takes you to another place in time and will make you ask yourself how long could you or would you wait for love," Winfrey said.

Punchline: Stedman.  Oh, and:

She noted that a film adaptation of "Love in the Time of Cholera" is scheduled for November release. The movie starring Javier Bardem and Benjamin Bratt was directed by Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire").

It would be better with Oprah and Stedman in the main roles.  Does Stedman act?  Maybe Oprah, Frey, and Franzen.  I know Frey acts.  Clearly, I have yet to read the book.

You know what would be fantastic?  Get Marquez on the Oprah show with a LongPen (seen at right), have Oprah kick in for a few thousand LongPen Receptacles (I don't know what they're really called, and can't be bothered to find out) at bookstores across the country; everyone in America gets to have Marquez's autograph and share in the communal joy of all having "met" the great man.  At the same time!   

Hoodwinked from afar by Margaret Atwood.

I think the LongPen is a big fat ridiculous scam.

Here's your LongPen.

1. Have author sign one book.  Something generic: "Best wishes! Yours, J.D. Salinger."
2. Publisher faxes signed page to bookseller.
3. Bookseller uses "the long photocopier."  Maybe some nice resume-quality paper.  If it's around.
4. Technology-hypnotized readers line up for their pseudo-autograph.

What's that?  The LongPen puts the "signature" right in the book, plus I get to see what the author looks like on television, no doubt a connection replete with technical difficulties?  Oh, well, in that case, never mind.  Great idea.

I would never in a hundred years line up for a photocopy of a signature from any author.  For an author to agree to participation in such a "author appearance" or "book signing" ("event", "reading", "respectful interaction with readers") makes me much less likely to feel any interest in that author's writing.

Cursing, cussing, swearing.

From The Company of Ghosts, the narrator's childhood servant, Filo, on swearing:

Filo taught my mother... to utter oaths as long as your arm and even longer... oaths that Filo defined as follows:  small rockets launched high into the sky without any intention of causing injury or offense but merely with the aim of breaking with the idiocy of ordinary conversation and of opening small cracks in the walls in which laziness normally encloses us.

Unease, anxiety, unrest.

We've started the discomfort.  Stop by, add it to your feed reader, tell your friends, agitate in the comments.  Brief unwieldy mission statement:

The purpose of this site is to draw out everything that comes from reading Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.  As the reading progresses, it will inform the content of this manifesto, which will - possibly - grow and change to reflect the effect of the book on its readers.  While this may read as unnecessarily pretentious, in practice, as with the case of many blogs, the entries will reflect whatever reactions and thoughts the participants care to share, provided it centers on texts from The Book of Disquiet and does not digress too far from the source.  Think of it as a blog from inside the text.

Worlds.

I never made good on my intention to review Robert Lopez' excellent Part of the World, but it gets due attention in the new Rain Taxi.  Excerpt:

Another, stranger level to this text is what's left within the strange erasure of the narrator's mind. As is mentioned in the first line, he often loses track of what he's said. Certain phrases or ideas are repeated at several different moments throughout the text, each refurnished with new surrounding detail, causing a slow reveal of the fractaled memory of a man left mostly to himself. The narrator's relationship with a neighbor slowly blooms and withers in its ways(occasionally he says he just calls her at scheduled times to be polite; later they masturbate watching each other from bedroom windows; later they share a bed but can't seem to touch. Things continue to expand further until the narrator's insular sexuality becomes so odd and frustrating it's almost painful. In certain moments the strand deteriorates even to the point we have to wonder how benign this man is. Two distinct sections of the novel find him slipping into a third person, symbolic form of speech, both of which seem to refer to the possibility of violence:

Faust on ground B looking for help. Not B looking for help. B back on couch drinking beer and watching baseball and fumbling with inhalers. Faust on ground grounded. Two despicables in conversation concerning toilets and left-fielders. Beer and shoes helping Faust to ground. Faust on ground maybe bleeding. Maybe gasping for breath. Faust on ground B looking at Faust on ground. Standing over Faust. Then beer and baseball and bedtime.

And then the first line of the next paragraph: "Faust spent the night, I think." It remains impossible to know what really happened—if the narrator is struck with flights of fantasy, of vision, or if he's actually more volatile than he lets on and/or remembers. As in David Lynch's work, the bigger questions are left open, only slightly shredded, making them that much more disconcerting.