I'm trying to finish up a few projects that have kept me busy these last few days, and if you could only see what the calendar looks like for my next five weeks... Gah.
Kate Braverman, who will be making an appearance at La Jolla's D.G. Willis Books on March 3rd, talks to SoT favorite William T. Vollmann. Here's one of my favorite exchanges:
KB The literary and experimental conviction of your work coupled with the boldness of your subject matter, the vivid and unflinching depictions, suggest a serious passionate political vision and literary agenda.
WV I'm pro-death. I believe in a woman's right to an abortion. I believe in euthanasia. I believe in anyone's right to suicide. I believe in capital punishment. I believe in gun ownership. I believe in violent self-defense. That's the common denominator. The left is disturbed by my belief in capital punishment, and I own weapons. My buddies who go shooting with me are appalled that I'm not a Bush supporter. I believe in freedom of choice for everybody, which entails immense risks. Often people abuse the power that comes with freedom. Either way, society pays a tremendous cost. We pay for our gun violence, and we are paying an ever more immense cost for the repressive policies of our government. I'm not just blaming Bush, either. This ridiculous war on drugs has incarcerated so many, ruined lives and made them violent. I don't see why it's anybody's business if somebody uses drugs or goes to a prostitute. If someone uses drugs and thereby injures or impairs his ability to perform a public function and as a result people are injured or killed, that person should be punished. But let's punish the person for what he's done, not what he might do. We are all prostitutes. We all do things we would not otherwise do just to survive. None of us should be too proud. It's good to remember that the people we see incapacitated, drunk, and lying in the streets are our brothers and sisters.
Monsters and Critics reports that a number of writers from around the world plan to mark the third anniversary of the war in Iraq on March 20th with a "day of political lies": "Among the writers signing the call for the 'day of political lies' were Britain's Doris Lessing and Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter, India's Amitav Gosh, Turkey's Orhan Pamuk, Americans Paul Auster and Russell Banks, and Germany's Peter Schneider and Ulla Hahn."
From a speech delivered by King Juan Carlos of Spain commemorating the first Thai edition of Don Quixote:
Spain could find no better cultural ambassador to Thailand than Miguel de Cervantes, nor a better letter of presentation that his immortal Don Quixote of La Mancha. Neither could the commemorations organised to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the work’s first being published in Madrid in 1605 find a more perfect finale than this presentation, which today has brought us together here in Bangkok.
The novel “Don Quixote” stopped being the exclusive patrimony of Spaniards a long time ago. Don Quixote himself is a universal figure, one of those rare literary characters who, over the course of history, has taken on a life of his own, with profoundly human dimensions.
SlushPile Scott wonders what would happen if some of the syndicated reality show were to spend an episode or two exposing our more famous literary frauds. For instance, what if James Frey were to appear on Cheaters. Funny stuff.
Ron Rosenbaum of the the New York Observer offers a detailed analysis of Jonathan Demme's film Neil Young: Heart of Gold.
Comments