Over the next few days, you'll probably notice a few links to items that you've already read, this being a direct result of my week-long absence and the fact that I feel the need to point out some things that have caught my attention during the time off. I'll try to mix in some fresh news and content when I can, so bear with me as I sort through this backlog.
SlushPile Scott isn't the only one who felt better after hearing the news that Larry Brown's final finished novel, The Rabbit Factory, has been optioned to Lionsgate. And Thom Jones wrote the adaptation. I can't find any news on the publication of The Miracle of Catfish, the novel that Brown was working on when he passed away.
If you're a map geek, you'll love Gutenkarte, which:
is a geographic text browser, intended to help readers explore the spatial component of classic works of literature. Gutenkarte downloads public domain texts from Project Gutenberg, and then feeds them to MetaCarta's GeoParser API, which extracts and returns all the geographic locations it can find.
In other words, it's cool. Check out the map for Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'm sure you know which book I think would be a great match for this application.
Susan Tomaselli, editor of one of my favorite daily reads, Dogmatika, gave Syntax of Things a mention in her interview at 3AM Magazine's Buzzwords Blog, saying I have "excellent posts on the Beats." Thanks Susan.
If nothing else, I'll buy Robert Sullivan's new book based on the title alone: Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America With Lewis and Clark, a Lot of Bad Motels, a Moving Van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, My Wife, My Mother-in-Law, Two Kids, and Enough Coffee to Kill an Elephant. Sullivan celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Interstate (for Californians, that would be Freeway) highway system with a nice piece in the NY Times.
Speaking of the Fifties, check out this great course syllabus/online resource for a course at UPenn: The Literature & Culture of the American 1950s. {via}
I'm pretty sure that I've said it before, but if not I'll say it now, David Lowery, of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame, deserves more credit as a songwriter. In my opinion, he's one of our better ones. Check out this quote from a recent interview:
Most rock music is written in the style you learned in the seventh grade - 'What I did over my summer vacation.' I'm trying to write records the way Thomas Pynchon writes novels or (Federico) Fellini made movies: Tell a serious story using these absurdist tools like the unreliable narrator, where you know the storyteller is not telling the truth. I'm trying to use absurdity, irony and sarcasm in that tangential way Joseph Heller used in 'Catch 22.'
And if you think he's kidding, here's a snippet from one of CVB's very early songs, "Peace and Love":
Restless, three days without sleep, his mind wrapped in barely perceptible haze, he continues east, shaking, despite the stuttering convulsions and near death throes of his endearing 1962 Chevrolet. Storm follows him closely as it has for 3 days. In the pouring rain on the long dark highways he sees roadside casualty armadillos on their backs and owls and bats fly out of the his eyes into the blinding horizon. Despite the solitude of his dear car he feels he is being watched by more than just the curious deer and west Texas highway transients. At dawn, he begins to feel the first nearly imperceptible signs of the drugs taking effect. He crosses the border east into New Mexico. There is now no question in his mind about the flavor of the coffee and the sardonic smile of the crusty over made waitress. As he's crossing more than 2 states at once, his watch stops. He picks up a hitchhiker, some young lady, but unfortunately, as he's been expecting, the car breaks down in an abandoned shanty town known only as Brubaker.
"Just remember," she says. "I'm holding you responsible for all this" He cringes at the tone of her voice. A quick glance in the rear view mirror reveals to him the vision of the 3rd unattached eyeball. A star of dried cream at the bottom of the Styrofoam cup on the dashboard smiles at him and somehow, in her loneliness and boredom, her twelve-pack dwindling in the midday heat, he forces her into sex. The Chevrolet temporarily fixed, they drift on and fall upon a small bar in no place specific. Drunk by evening, she complains of morning sickness and by morning has noticeably grown in size. 2 days later, still heading east towards the holy angelic temple he has been envisioning in his sleep, she is 9 months pregnant. Later that day she gives birth to their son.
Born with gingham snakeskin cowboy boots and three umbilical cords he is within hours cursing his parents in some otherworldly alien language. And he mutters in perfect English in his sleep, while sucking his mothers breast, his twisted Utopian visions. She looks at him terrified and says, "Remember, I'm holding you responsible for all of this.
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