Sure, today Apple unvailed the “iPod phone” and the superslim iPod Nano, but the real news is that for the first time, via iTunes, the entire Harry Potter series will be available on digital audio (that’s $249 for the whole set). This is more interesting to me for what it represents. As iPods and other high-capacity digital audio players have become ubiquitous and as digital audio delivery (via podcasts and/or services like audible.com) has become more user friendly, the stage has been set for a revolution in reading. Though digital audio books will never overtake paper ones, they will only grow in popularity and sometime soon we may see a mini-revolution in the way people consume literature.
Big news from Apple
Recommendations from Friends
My friend Edan writes in to remind me about the latest issue of McSweeney’s. Typically I find that McSweeney’s are fun to look at, a mishmosh of interesting design and writing that doesn’t stick to your bones, but I’m genuinely excited about this McSweeney’s in a way that I haven’t been excited about any previous issue. This one is their comics issue with a cover designed by Chris Ware and comics by R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Daniel Clowes, Lynda Barry, and others as well as essays by Michael Chabon, Ira Glass, John Updike, Chip Kidd, and others. These are all favorites of mine in the world of comics and books. I’m looking forward to reading it. Edan also told me to have a look at The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture, which she describes as “awesome and big.” I would have to agree. Go here and click on “look inside” to check it out.I also got a note from my friend Emre who really wants me, and everyone, to read Italo Calvino. He is a most trusted fellow reader so I feel confident when I pass along his Calvino recommendations: “pick up a copy of The Baron in the Trees and indulge in it. The Nonexistent Knight is pretty good too, Invisible Cities is ok, or maybe I couldn’t get into it because I read it on the subway.” Thanks Edan and Emre!
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Weschler sighting
I had no idea that I was the one who introduced Scott of Conversational Reading to Lawrence Weschler. I’m glad I did because otherwise he might not have attended Weschler’s visit to the City Arts & Lectures series and given us an excellent report. Every time I hear about Weschler I get more and more interested. I think, eventually, I’ll read all of his books.I was also happy to see Scott’s report that Weschler described Joseph Mitchell “as possibly the greatest writer he’s ever read.” I was introduced to Mitchell in an offhand sort of way in a literature course in college, and after reading Joe Gould’s Secret and dipping into Up in the Old Hotel from time to time, he remains one of my favorites.
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HEADLINE BOOK PROMPTS POST POST!
To the panoply of guilty pleasures this world has to offer, I humbly add the New York Post. I’m a Daily News man myself, but really, stuck inside a stalled subway car somewhere under the East River with nothing to read but those creepy Dr. Z acne treatment ads, who cares which paper turns up on an empty seat?When it comes to reading, tabloid journalism is the Twinky at the tip of the food pyramid, and page one is its creamy center. When confronted with the new book assembled by the staff of the NY Post, Headless Body In Topless Bar: The Best Headlines from America’s Favorite Newspaper, I couldn’t help myself. Knowing that a bellyache would accompany such indulgence, I still stuffed my face.Of course, we are in the midst of a particularly salacious period of news in the City, which makes the book a timely read, er, leaf-through. Eliot Spitzer’s nightmare is a headline writer’s wet dream. Have a look at some recent Post fronts (March 11th’s “HO NO!” is one of our favorites). All in keeping with the paper’s motto, “All the news that’s fit to bury beneath a mountain of hooker photos.”Ah, but a good hooker story comes along but once in a while. Luckily the Post has mastered the touchstone of any good tabloid front page: the cringe-inducing pun. On the conviction of a cybersex impresario: “YOU’VE GOT JAIL!” On the closing of a Dunkin’ Donuts for rodents: “UNDER MOUSE ARREST.” On earth’s encounter with a worrisome piece of interstellar matter: “KISS YOUR ASTEROID GOODBYE!” The CIA should consider reading these headlines to prisoners as a substitute for waterboarding.Yet, like a guy with a megaphone at an otherwise urbane cocktail party, the Post does command attention. Sometimes it even gets it just right. I like the front page from June 27, 2007: a photoshopped picture of Paris Hilton hoisted aloft on the hands of a throng in Times Square with the headline “V-D DAY! PARIS LIBERATED, BIMBOS REJOICE.” Then, sometimes there’s just no need to dress up a headline, such as on July 30 1985: “EATEN ALIVE! GIANT TIGERS KILL PRETTY ZOO KEEPER WHO ‘LOVED ALL ANIMALS.'”A New York Magazine survey named April 15, 1983’s “HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR” the greatest NY Post headline of all time. As one Post editor puts it, “How do you tell a sensational story other than sensationally?” It’s ironic though, that the title of this book is its climax. Sort of like the paper itself: the cover is generally the best part.
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Dull Art: The New Yorker Obama Cover
The New Yorker opened the week in a lather of controversy surrounding the cover of its latest issue. The Barry Blitt illustration is a rather heavy-handed satire of the various smears that have circulated about Barack and Michelle Obama. Essentially, that he is a closet Muslim extremist and she a closet militant. Blitt’s unsubtle drawing portrays them in the garb of these personas.Speaking as a New Yorker fan, I can’t stand these political satire covers. Aside from them not being very funny or interesting to look at, they lower the New Yorker to the level of the fray. The key to the New Yorker’s success, however, has been its ability to place itself above all that.Yes, the New Yorker is quite obviously a left leaning publication, but its journalism strives for even-handedness and the entire enterprise is built on a reverence for the facts, as its legendary fact-checking operation attests. By “the fray” I do not just mean politics, I also mean the “here today, gone tomorrow” jokes and the offhanded irony that seem to permeate most of our culture. The New Yorker, meanwhile, has always been so (justifiably) secure in its status, that neither its contents nor even its ideological leanings require an advertisement on the cover, which historically has been given over instead to a piece of art that exists simply for its own sake.The political covers come across as jarring in this context. A couple of years ago another political cover caused a bit of controversy. The Bush/Cheney cover was a tired Brokeback Mountain rehash that got people riled up, and, as it turned out, it bumped a cover that was more topical and far more meaningful and in the spirit of the magazine.Apparently, I may have been in the minority in this view, as the Mark Ulriksen Brokeback cover, along with a political Blitt cover, won awards.It’s not even the political content of these covers that bugs me – there have occasionally been some good political covers – it’s their heavy-handed unfunniness that paints the magazine’s readers with a very broad brush. I don’t find the Obama cover to be offensive in the least, just easy and dumb.If you feel the same way I do (or even if you think I’ve lost it), dig into the archives and enjoy the hundreds of sublime and clever covers that have graced the New Yorker over the years.
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The Wake of What I Love: A Commencement Address
I spend a significant amount of time being the crazy dude who came to someone else’s classroom to talk about how poetry is amazing. Right now, I’m the commencement speaker. I promise, in three hours, I’ll be the guy who looks uncomfortable in a tie on the downtown 4 train.
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Most Anticipated Books?*
10. Angstrom and Zuckerman Fistfight in Heaven, by John Updike, as told to Philip Roth“World-weary Lieutenant Nathan Zuckerman’s got one day left until retirement. But when the district commander pairs him with hot-headed rookie Rabbit Angstrom, s–t gets bananas..”9. Moms are Not Nice, by Christopher Hitchens“The next in this droll Englishman’s series of fearless attempts to speak truth to power. To be followed in 2009 by Your Furniture is Ugly.”8. War & Peace Redux: The Official Restored Director’s Cut (with Deleted Scenes and Commentary)“Finally, experience this great novel as the author intended it! 3,000 pages of previously unreleased material flesh out Prince Andrew’s sordid backstory, and introduce us to one of Tolstoy’s greatest creations, ‘Crazy Uncle Louie.'”7. Cookin’ with the Franz, by Jonathan Franzen“Learn how to cook, the Jonathan Franzen way!”6. Tammy O’Shanter and the Curse of the Missing Cowpoke, by Michael Chabon“Once again, the award-winning novelist puts his unique stamp on our favorite fictional genres: in this case, Horror, Western, and Leprechaun.”5. Bigger Than You and You are Not Me or Him and Her, by Miranda July“Envelope-pushing first novel.”4. How We Became You and What It May Mean, Someday, Someday, Never by Dave Eggers“Envelope-pushing story collection.”3. Ten Days Later in the Hills, by Jane Smiley“A group of chatty and libidinous zombies retreat to the Hollywood Hills for a week of stimulating politico-philosophical dialogue and sexual athleticism. That’s right: zombies.”2. A Perfectly Fine Generation, by Tom Brokaw“Just in time for Father’s Day, Brokaw brings Baby Boomers a much-needed reminder that, hey, they’re just fine.”1. Finite Jest, by David Foster Wallace“The expurgated version (180 pp).”[*Editor’s Note: Not Actual Books]
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My very first entry
This is my very first entry on my very first blog. I want to use this as a place to put my writing “out there” into the world. I’ll be writing about music, sports, art, politics, and my unremarkable (but deeply fascinating to me) daily life.
To begin: It is a strange time right now. After months of banter and argument we attacked Iraq. In the long period that led up to this most folks quickly formed an opinion one way or the other and then as the barage of information and insights and new developments came to light, they adjusted their views many times. Some stayed at the extremes while others, like myself, wavered uncomfortably in the middle. I want to believe that we are doing the right thing, and so far I’m pretty sure that I’m not deluding myself. Here in Los Angeles, most folks are either uninformed and uninterested or are badly misinformed and delight in disseminating incorrect information and adding their own personal, implausible spin to things. A good example of this was the anti-CNN rally that took place at Sunset and Cahuenga today. I find it amusing and more than a little bit frightening that so many folks derive so much satisfaction from from deriding something like CNN. To claim that CNN spouts propaganda and is a puppet of the government betrays a fundamental disconnect about the very country in which these people live. If they believe that the current government is the bad guy, then, thanks to the protections of the Constitution, the competition between the multitudes of news sources out there, and the ability of every citizen to seek out news from whatever source he or she please, CNN is one of the good guys. In fact, they have no choice but to be the good guy. The Constitution grants them the freedom to report what they please, and even if the government tried to stifle a major news story, CNN would have too mcuh to gain by being the first to break the story. They would do their best to report accurately because it pays off for them in increased viewership. And in the end, they have the force of law behind them anyway. All that this protest in LA really accomplished was the closing down for the day of many retail establishments along Sunset, which I’m guessing resulted in lost wages for the people working in the Staples, Jack in the Box, and Bank of America among others. Not to mention the traffic that they backed up. Does this accomplish anything aside from negatively affecting the lives of your fellow citizens. I don’t think so. I just hope that this is all over soon, and that we are doing the right thing.
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