I've met misery and its name is Nicotine Fit. The gum is helping but not enough so that I don't constantly think of wanting to light one up. Ah well. Perhaps the weekend will give me needed distance and a lessening since of need.
"The passion readers used to feel for venturing into the serious novel has withered," Norman Mailer said in his speech accepting the NBA's honorary medal for lifetime achievement.
"[T]he barbarians are at the gate, and the dominant mercantile culture welcomes them," Lawrence Ferlinghetti said in his speech accepting the NBA's first ever Literarian Award for outstanding service to the world of literature.
The Mobile Register's Books columnist John Sledge has more on the Brad Vice plagiarism controversy, including this from an email that Vice sent to him explaining the situation:
I borrowed about 20 lines of description from Carmer's book and scattered them through the text of my story because I wanted my characters to see what he saw. Later at the cross burning scene I borrowed a hate speech a Klansman makes. Since I studied Carmer's book as a work of nonfiction I thought this speech had a truth value apart from Carmer ... I thought I was paying homage to Carmer. I worked hard for over fours years on this story. No real writer wants glory for another writer's work. But few of us work from whole cloth, either. I have mentioned Carmer in a public reading of the story at the 2004 Mississippi Philological Association and in print. ... And yet for all this, it doesn't change the fact that because I was ignorant of the rules of fair use I didn't acknowledge him directly in the print acknowledgments of the book. I deeply regret this and I deeply regret any harm and embarrassment I've caused.
Here's another sign o' the times: A British mobile phone service plans to condense classic literature into SMS text messages:
John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost" begins "devl kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war." ("The devil is kicked out of heaven because he is jealous of Jesus and starts a war.")
The controversial San Diego high school literary magazine that raised the ire of local parents and educators because it published revealing photos of students in its pages has won a best of show award from the National Scholastic Press Association.
Check out Discovering Dickens for pdf or paper versions of the original serialized editions of Charles Dickens' novels Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, complete with illustrations. {via}
Information Leafblower has revealed his annual survey of music bloggers listing the top 40 US bands in 2005. Normally, I wouldn't gripe about such things, but I'm still having a hard time figuring out the Sufjan Stephens craze. And how the hell does Wilco dip that far down the list, below Kelly Clarkson? Wilco's new live album should be generating enough "buzz" to lift it a little higher.
If The Nationals squared off against Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in a soccer match, what would the outcome be? Well, it happened.
Finally, because I feel that I need to give back due to the fact that so much has been given to me lately, I give you something that will surely make your Friday brighter if you're a My Morning Jacket fan:
Great track, Jeff. Gracias.
That Book Standard piece is odd. Such a sniping tone for people who get few chances to raise serious concerns. And just because those concerns have been around for so long, it's no longer cool to raise them? Strange.
Though, this is kind of touching, if accurate: "Vollmann began his acceptance speech about ten feet to the right of the microphone, and had to be shepherded over by an attendant. Still, in a tuxedo that looked several sizes too big for him . . ."
Posted by: TJ | November 18, 2005 at 01:04 PM