Condalmo

It captures the very essence of an irresistable story with a living cast of characters. Not your typical diet book.

Cliches in reviewing exposed.

The fine line between terrible and transcendent.

Via everywhere, the world's worst album covers.  Here's my pick.  Who would you buy this for?  Who would you leave this to in your will after you buy it, put it on the record player, and hang yourself?  (Nobody, because you'd be dead.  Leave me alone, it's late.) The contenders here.

When your bookmark betrays you.

What does this say to you: the only thing I could find to use as a bookmark today, for my copy of Ed Park's Personal Days, was... my newly minted business card.

Oh, and I had my shirt tucked in. 

...

Mmm, yeah.  Here's a picture of you-know-who asking you to you-know-what tomorrow.

Garden post.

Planted the garden yesterday.  The composter didn't see too much action last summer, but check out what fruit it bears anyway.  I sifted out the larger chunks with my elder daughter, leaving this beautiful black goodness.  If I could post the smell here, I would: so deep.  I like saving everything and that includes money.

Video of Henry Miller liking/disliking food.

Mostly disliking.  He seems less than delightful, which is wholly appropriate.  Via the newly launched annex.

It didn't. (work.)

Boldface added to this article by me.

May 28, 2008

Borders Reports a Loss, and Its Stock Falls 7%

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Borders Group said its same-store sales fell and its losses narrowed in the first quarter, and Wall Street greeted Tuesday’s unveiling of the bookseller’s redesigned Web site with a sell-off of its shares...

Oops!

"It was a tough sales environment we did it in," said George Jones, the chief executive of Borders.

Mr. Jones said a revamping announced last year is expected to save $120 million a year. He said the cuts and the redesign of the retail Web site will pay off in months to come.

"You’re going to see an interplay of the online world with the brick-and-mortar world," he said. "If we do the right things, it will create value for our shareholders."

Brilliant!

Here's a picture of George Jones, who wants you to know his resume is up to date with some fresh fonts at Linked In.

"Good afternoon. I'm here from Condalmo. I'll be closing your store today."

My wife shared with me this morning that our local Waldenbooks is closing forever.  Do you have a Waldenbooks near you?  Not for long!  Kelly Johnson reports from 2007:

Borders Group Inc. announced Thursday that it is changing strategy to focus on its core domestic superstore business and will close 250 Waldenbooks stores over two years and convert most of its international stores into franchises.

Borders (NYSE: BGP) of Ann Arbor, Mich., has not yet "defined lists of which stores will be closing," spokeswoman Anne Roman told the Sacramento Business Journal on Thursday morning.

Waldenbooks has 10 locations in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee-area stores at Southridge Mall in Greendale and at Regency Mall in Racine. Borders has six Wisconsin locations, including a Greendale store adjacent to Southridge.

Borders' plan includes dumping Amazon.com as its online retailer and creating a new proprietary Borders.com Web site early next year...

Yeah, that'll work.  I've always yearned for a "magic shelf."

So the local one is closing.  It's been there just about as long as the Mall it's in, which only my father remembers as the site of a long lost pig farm, so what, thirty-five years?  I went there often as a child, roaming the science fiction and comic/comedy books aisles with my grandmother, blah blah childhood memories blah love of books blah blah, everything in the store 40%-75% off oh shit let's go right now!

Money was spent:

The Intellectual Devotional

Netherland

A Light in the Attic

All the Sad Young Literary Men

Divisadero

Unaccustomed Earth

The Book of Other People

Angelina Ballerina

The Great Man

The Kite Runner

Innocent Traitor

A Tranquil Star

In Defense of Food

Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette

The Meaning of Night

Life of Pi

The Dance of Anger

Ines of My Soul

Their Eyes Were Watching God

The Mermaid Chair

Oof, I can't believe I linked the whole thing.  Purchases made through links will serve to defray the cost of these additions to our now completely unmanageable to-be-read list.

Everything is okay. Everything is okay. Everything is okay.

I wish I could point to the following as more evidence that American culture is 95% by and for brain damaged monkeys, but apparently we're the last to jump on board with this "worldwide phenomenon."  (International readers, please weigh in.)  Does that make me feel better or worse?  I'm off to the liquor store.

I could ask my local taxidermist, I guess.

I still see a lot of cars and trucks (mostly trucks) that still have their Official U.S. Government Issue USA Terrorist Hunting Permit stickers, all red, white, blue, and sparkly. They're so pretty and shiny in the sun.

I wonder how many evildoers those brave souls have bagged. You'd think they'd all be caught by now.

McCain prefers you stupid and carrying a gun.

Okay, not exactly accurate, but it has a nice ring to it, couple of different meanings there if you toss in an extra comma.  I like McCain well enough most of the time, and I don't think it would be politically smart or even fair/nice to go after his military record, but what he does as a politician in relation to today's troops seems like fair game to me.  Especially when he doesn't return to the Senate to cast his NO vote, knowing how asinine/vulnerable it makes him look:

McCain's opposition to Senate legislation that would expand educational benefits for military veterans ignited a heated crossfire between the two White House contenders as they gear up for November's presidential election campaign.

McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, reacted sharply after Obama criticized him for opposing the legislation. The Arizona senator did not return to the Senate to vote on the measure, which passed easily.

"I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans," McCain said. "And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."

Obama, an Illinois senator who did not serve in the military, said he was proud to "give our veterans the support and opportunity they deserve" by voting for the bill. He said in a statement he was disappointed by McCain's attack.

I think that it probably makes sense to McCain - well, okay, maybe not:

The legislation that sparked the exchange was sponsored by Virginia Democratic Sen. James Webb and Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, both military veterans. McCain and the Bush administration said it was so generous it could encourage veterans to leave the military after one term to take advantage of the increased college benefits.

Is it because it was sponsered by Jim "Did You Hear Me On Fresh Air?" Webb and Chuck "McCain You Dimwit" Hagel (not their actual names)?  Probably not, but who knows.  Nice of McCain to associate himself with George "20% and Dropping" Bush again, though.  Thanks!

Isn't the idea behind the bill to A) reward troops for a job well done, and B) provide incentive for intelligent, motivated young men and women to join up?  Because, Hello Desert Storm, you're not joining up because you want to be An Army of One Guy With PTSD and Some Unidentifiable Fatal Rash, you're joining up because the G.I. Bill will enable you to make a better life for yourself, and your children, when your tour of duty is up.  Would it encourage veterans to leave?  Maybe, if they're fighting with a ridiculous mandate in the middle of an endless civil war (oops!), but with college/trade school costs going up all the time, what else are you going to do to keep the volunteer draft workable?  Volunteer, maybe?   

Here's a picture of Javier Marias pointing to the pain caused him by illogical decisionmaking re: troop benefits.

Anybody for a warm up?

Back in the days of my underemployment at the Tasty Prawn, and my days of ample-computer-leeway at a somewhat more rewarding full time job, I reviewed books.  Lately, not so much.  Starting the new employment endeavor has taken a lot of my attention.  But I reviewed!  And I greatly enjoyed reviewing a pair of titles from Coffee House Press:  The Exquisite by Laird Hunt and The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson.  Far be it from me to shill for any old Tom that comes along, but CHP is one of those good independent presses that deserve support.  Long story short, the Press is having a moving sale, so if you were considering a purchase, go to their site.  Oh, yeah:  50% off all titles purchased on their site. 

Sleepingfish ZZZ arrives.

This just in.

Sleepingfish issue ZZZ is now available for your reading pleasure:
http://www.sleepingfish.net   

It features work by David Wirthlin, David Hollander, John Dermot Woods, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Rick Moody, Miranda Mellis, Patrick Leonard, James Reich, Paul Kavanagh, Elizabeth Ellen, Kate Hill Cantrill, Brian Foley, Nathan Pendlebury, Christopher Chambers, Ladee Hubbard, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Eugene Lim, Kim Chinquee , Dana Miceli, Marin Buschel, Nick Bredie, Ed Taylor, PF Potvin, Nan Burton, Kathy Fish, Norman Lock, Kathryn Regina, Cliff Benston, James Grinwis, Astrid Cravens, Dawn Raffel, Tara Rebele, Joshua Ware & Rachel May, Ali Aktan Askin and Jac Jemc.

Tobias Wolff reads a short story.

(via)

Sarvas is ill.

As in a sinus infection:

Folks, I am laid up with a fairly severe sinus infection which, in addition to making me completely miserable, is keeping me off planes. Therefore, I am genuinely heartbroken to have to cancel this week's two appearances, the first in Washington, D.C. and the second in Portsmouth, N.H.  I'm a "the show must go on" kind of guy but this grounding is doctor's orders, so I hope you will understand.

No N.H. appearance?  Damn it, I had my outfit already picked out.  I knew I should have rented it instead of buying it.  For sale, unused barely used, B.O. or ARC of the forthcoming Chris Adrian story collection:

Tintin's secrets.

There’s a secret written into the book’s very title. McCarthy is telling us less about, say, what literature is than what it isn’t. We come to a novel expecting it to tell us everything that it can, to be replete. McCarthy lifts the rug to show us that the more a story tells us, the more it hides. Channeling Barthes, McCarthy characterizes Tintin — whose exploits so often involve misread missives, misunderstood map coordinates, misconstruction of another character’s language — as standing “guardian . . . at the heart of a noise.” In all his adventures around the globe, Tintin is constantly trying to decode clues he’s been given, constantly finding himself mired in perils, from which he inevitably escapes, only to compulsively reboot the fiendish cycle again and again. All his labors turn out to be frustratingly like those of Sisyphus — unending. Whenever he figures out a particular enigma, it only unleashes more enigmas, sending him off on yet another quest. For McCarthy, as for Barthes, this is the “secret” of literature.

(Whole review here.)

75,000.

Wow.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch...  (via)

What would you write with Grampa?

Alarming!:

Carbon Copies

Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.

Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by.

Let me repeat: alarming!  What if you're one of those people that chews on their pencils?  I, for one, have no deceased family members I would enjoy chewing.  Or using to draft banal blog posts.

Man books.

Via the extraordinarily thorough site The Art of Manliness, here's the 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man's Library.  Have you read all the books on this list?  Yeah, I could tell.

Younger than McCain.

That's not all.

What is a "highly effective person"?

Not to be snarky.  Just wondering.  Am I effective?  Hmmm.  Well, here's an article about the web habits of highly effective people, including Maud Newton, AL Kennedy, and some other people.  via Maud.

Dear Scared in Texas.

My question: how does the following scared white person relate to offal?

This woman in Houston, Texas argues that people who can't communicate in English should be deported. (via)

What is "____ ____ _____" by ____ ____?

Hint: you will not be surprised!

"______ _____ ______" is a terrible book. One of the worst I've ever read. But you have to give _____ _____ credit for one thing: He's got chutzpah. Two and a half years after he was eviscerated by _______ for exaggerating many of the incidents in his now-discredited memoir "_ _____ _____ _______," he's back with this book, which aims to be the big novel about Los Angeles, a panoramic look at the city that seeks to tell us who we are and how we live.

Sad, then, that it gets coverage for being a crappy book by a charlatan when better books are ignored.

Strunk and Whitey.

Though they reserve the harshest judgment for professional, do not assume that white people will cast a blind eye to your grammar mistakes in email and official documents. They will judge you and make a general assessment about your intelligence after the first infraction. Fortunately, this situation can be improved if you ask a white person to proof read your work before you send it out. “Hey Jill, I’m sorry to do this, but I have a business degree and I’m a terrible writer. Can you look this over for me?” This deft maneuver will allow the white person to feel as though their liberal arts degree has a purpose and allow you to do something more interesting.

Ed Park split into five.

Ed Park, a man of many parts, divides again this week at Five Chapters with "The Oblivion Arms."  He also blogs this week at Powell's, while also editing The Believer, crafting The New York Ghost, and sharing his Personal Days with you.

The Dying Animal and American Pastoral.

I'm listening to Roth's The Dying Animal.  Am I a bad man for thinking it's soooo much better than Roth's lauded American Pastoral?  Um, it is.  All I remember about AP is a guy named Swede, a bridge, and a barbeque.  DA, it's so ... well, misogynistic. But Roth, that's where he shines, isn't it?  Kepesh is an a-hole (at least on disc one) but you can smell the pleasure Roth had in writing it.  AP felt like a chore, like Roth was putting the pieces where they were expected to be by awards judges.  DA is looser.  I haven't read the other two Kepesh books (The Breast and The Professor of Desire; I own the latter) but this one's got the goods.  Again, 1/4 of the way through.

Kakutani didn't like it, as she found Kepesh unsympathetic, which I'm not sure is all that disappointing to Roth, but Franzen, it makes him mad, it's not fair!!!  A.O. Scott, she felt bad for Kepesh, which, hmm, we'll see. 

Here's a picture of Roth thinking about writing something that will make you angry, and not caring.

Here's Charlie Brown.

Stacy Malkan reading. Dress: casual.

Not perhaps something you'd expect me to link to, but an upcoming reading at Longfellow Books:

Wednesday, May 7th at 7 pm
Stacy Malkan
Author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry

Join us this Wednesday when author and activist Stacy Malkan will be here to talk about her new book, Not Just a Pretty Face. The event is made possible by a local non-profit organization, the Enviromental Health Strategy Center. Stacy is the communications director of Health Care Without Harm, and in 2002, helped launch the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics after a startling discovery: the presence of industrial chemicals linked to birth defects in 70% of personal products tested (You can read the full report here). She spent a decade as an investigative journalist, and in recent years has been leading the fight to keep dangerous chemicals out of everyday products.

Not Just a Pretty Face is more than just disturbing statistics and unreported dangers. It's also the compelling story of the scientists, politicians, and activists engaged in this ongoing fight, and their struggles and successes. It's even the story of Stacy herself:

"I admit, I was a teenage make-up diva. I had an elaborate morning ritual involving eight types of make-up and multiple hair products, topped off with a generous cloud of Aqua Net Extra Super Hold hair spray. Twenty years later, I learned that my beauty routine was exposing me to 200 chemicals a day, many of them toxic--all before I even left the house to get on the school bus!"

The good news is, all is not lost. Not all companies are using dangerous substances, and thanks to the efforts of people like Stacy Malkan (and some great new resources--check out the Skin Deep Database) consumers can make informed choices about what they put in their bodies. So stop by this Wednesday, and educate yourself. Remember, knowledge is power.

National Short Story Month 2008.

As Dan notes, it's May.  How did that happen?  I have no idea what, if anything, I'll do for NSSM this year.  Dan wrote that we should expect less from him than last year, which sounds like we'll only get two or three short story posts a day from him, instead of six or seven.  Because that's what you can produce when you've cloned yourself.

Lucrative adaptation deal with your latte?

"Rejoice, random dudes pitching your book to art-house legends!"

A strange and not entirely welcome balance.

Do you ever get to a place where you don't want any more books?  I've got so many unread books, yet there's always something I'm interested in checking out, some new author (for me) whose back catalog is beckoning.  It's always 75% "want more books," 25% "that's enough for now." 

I won a Powell's gift card the other day, and was looking at my wish list last night, trying to decide what to get before my postage pass expires.  And there's good stuff on the list, but I've got good stuff lined up already.  I didn't buy anything, and thinking about it, I realized that even with money for new books, there isn't anything I want to spend it on right now. 

Should I call the doctor?

UPDATE: Never mind.  Phew for a minute there

Harry's revision.

I was hesitant about my ARC of Mark Sarvas' Harry, Revised.  Sometimes, your host here tends to overthink things and get mired in indecision.  What if I think it's crap?  Shouldn't I be honest about that?  Worse, what if I think it's really great?  The last thing I want to read about is some assclown pointing to my thoughts about the book as evidence of book-blog incest. (Is this still a book-blog?) So, to avoid any confusion, let's be clear right up front:

I'm sleeping with Mark Sarvas!* 

I finished reading Harry, Revised the other night.  Thought it started a bit slow, unsure of the direction it was going to go in, but by the end - and I stayed up late reading the last 75 or so pages - I couldn't help but be appreciative of the work and thought that went into it.  I just wrote about Kidd's mishandling of the hard subject matter around Milgram's experiments; Sarvas' challenge isn't to capture the emotion around an experiment, but around a man who has lost his wife.  I liked his slow, methodical trip into Harry's eventual collapse - early on, I was one-eyebrow-raised about this guy's extracurricular activities, thinking it "unrealistic" that he'd be doing all these different things when his wife just died.  And I know about the stages of grief, about the power of the mind to seal away terribly painful things in strange ways.  I just didn't think Sarvas had given us enough, at that early point in the book, to make it seem okay that Harry was doing these things. 

Looking back, it all fits together very realistically - Harry's character flaws match up with his hamhanded (at times) attempts at putting one foot in front of the other after a tremendous loss.  The difficulties their marriage faced inform the decisions he makes to try and cope, even as he's completely shut off to the entire loss.  He's coping with only the slightest indication of what it is he's got to cope with, and that seems only as real and normal as such a loss could get.  Plus, the book has genuine funny bits that don't feel like they were shoehorned in, it's got the "crush on the barista/diner waitress/bookstore clerk with the hair and the tattoo, oh my" that I just know (and Mark just knew) you could relate to, it's got ideas on friendship, pugilism, bicycling (shocker, right!) and love, none of which hit you over the head as Big Ideas.  So, I liked it.  You will, too.

* ...'s book next to my bed.  It always takes me a few days to shelve a book after I finish it, longer if I enjoyed it.  My side of the bed, they pile up.  Twice a year, they all get shelved.