Perfect Punctuation
I Do Not Like My Tinder Date
I didn’t know I wanted a Dr. Seuss-style poem about Tinder until McSweeney’s kindly provided it. You could also consider Horton Hears a Who! as political theater.
Who Gets to Review?
“The best critics do more than explain why they liked or didn’t like a book; they try to understand books, and show other readers, by example, how to read and think about those books. Specialized expertise can work in service of that goal, but is probably not as important as a willingness to attempt to be a work’s most thoughtful reader.” Elisa Gabbert writes for Electric Literature about who gets to translate and review works and takes Kazuo Ishiguro‘s latest novel, The Buried Giant (which we reviewed here), as a case study.
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N.Y.C. vs. M.F.A. vs. R.I.P.
“I’m sure the ghost is fascinated by the N.Y.C. vs. M.F.A. debate, and would add that there’s a literary-world bias… toward writing done by the living.” The New Yorker interviews Rebecca Curtis about ghost stories and her latest piece of short fiction, “The Pink House.” For more about Curtis, check out our review of her debut collection Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money.
Writerly Humility
“I couldn’t tell if a poem I was writing would come to anything or not until the last line was there. That’s always been my method. I may have revised less than some other poets, but I think I write as much crap as anyone.” Kaveh Akbar interviews Sharon Olds about inspiration, contemporary poetry, and rejection letters for Divedapper. Pair with this Millions piece, featuring seven editors looking back on their rejection styles.
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Killers of the Bidding War
This week in news that’s almost impossible to believe: after an intense bidding war, the rights to David Grann’s upcoming book Killers of the Flower Moon were bought by Imperative Entertainment for a whopping five million dollars. All this for a nonfiction book that isn’t due out for well over a year. Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the investigation into the mysterious deaths of several Osage Indians in the 1920s, who were at the time some of the wealthiest people in the world. The case was one of the first ever worked by the FBI.
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Curiosities: Seekers, Idiots, Grazers, Browsers, Campers, Independents, Time-Sucks
Lots of action with the online mags: There’s a new issue of The Hipster Book Club, with a review of Aleksander Hemon’s Love and Other Obstacles, and an interview with Glen David Gold. There’s a new Quarterly Conversation, which includes Scott Esposito’s thoughtful consideration of Cormac McCarthy. Issue 3 of N1BR is out. And the first issue of The Point includes a piece on David Foster Wallace’s legacy.Brooklyn gets a new bookstore: Greenlight!Corpus Librus, the BEA editionIn an interview with Ed Champion, Sherman Alexie clarifies his comments about the Kindle being elitist.Tibor Fischer shares a first look at Thomas Pynchon’s forthcoming Inherent Vice.The seven types of bookstore customers. (via)An incredible collection of pocket paperback colophons.Coming soon from The Onion, Inventory, a collection of “obsessively specific pop-culture lists.”The Ask Metafilter crowd suggests what to read after 2666.For fans of style guides, here’s one from The EconomistFOUND Magazine founder Davy Rothbart is crazy about vintage NBA jerseys. (via)Further Reading: Edan’s post on gifting books in a digital age generated a bunch of interesting comments. Be sure to check them out. On a related note, in PopMatters, Michael Antman bemoans the disappearance of the “physical manifestations of contemporary culture.”
Come Out and Party with The Rumpus
New Yorkers: tonight you can party with the likes of Sam Lipsyte, Colson Whitehead, Amber Tamblyn, Andrew McCarthy, Nato Green, Nick Flynn, Janine Brito, K. Flay and a whole bunch of the writers for The Rumpus. All it takes is $10 at the door. Festivities begin at Brooklyn’s Public Assembly at 7pm. Details can be found here.
Punctuation marks have unique personalities, and if they formed a large dysfunctional family, forced to gather together for some sort of mandatory event would be:
a.) Parenthese: Passive aggressive, snipey aunt who throws cold water over everyone’s good news with stink bombs of insults surrounded by insincerely-voiced congratulations.
b.) Em-dash: Uncle returned from extended tour of English-teaching in Thailand. Furtive eyes, caught kicking the cat in the pantry when his brandy runs out and blizzard prevents run to “packie” for more.
c.) Ellipses: Cousin with light brown hair, light brown clothes, light brown eyes. No one can ever remember her name. Has never been able to complete a whole sentence at dinnertime without someone else interrupting her.
d.) Colon: Grandfather, 42 year employee of Government Printing Office, everything he says is an official-sounding pronouncement about weather. Is actually recalling the 1978 Blizzard and thinks it is still 1978. Found wearing several Red Sox baseball caps at the same time and tinkering with the furnace in an alarming manner.
e.) Period: Father, 26 year employee of Government Printing Office, all pronouncements are official-sounding. With add additional period and become a colon by 2035.
Punctuation Alert!
Today (12/4/2014) the Washington Post reviewed “Suspended Sentences – Three Novellas” by Patrick Modiano. The first, “Afterimages,” describes an odd, furtive character who disappears one day without a trace:
“As the narrator remarks, ‘Of all the punctuation marks, he told me, ellipses were his favorite.”
Moe Murph
Still Favors the Em-dash for Characterization
Whoa, Moe Murph — Packie? Red Sox caps? Blizzard of 1978? Furnace??? I hear the siren call of the Bay State. If you ah not from they-ah, I am wicked impressed with the authenticity of yaw voice. A tad dispirited that I still don’t know what an em-dash is (perhaps one should have been used above?) but loved your dysfunctional family, especially the ellipses . . .now get outta he-ah . . .
@priskill
Ha Ha… yes, I am from Boston. This is not quite “my” family, but a couple of the bits and pieces fit, including my poor grandfather and his furnace fiddling and multiple hat wearing at the end of his life. Also, our entire family does tend to all speak at the same time and we do have one cousin who never can get a word in edgewise. And she is quite “beige” in affect. :)
The uncle, dad, and the aunt are bits and pieces cobbled together from my fetid swamp of a brain…
If you want to read some wonderful examples of Em-dash, read the poetry of Emily Dickinson! The Em-dash creates a wonderful sense of motion and ease.
(I laughed out loud at the Modiano review today!)
Best Regards, Moe Murph
@Moe Murph Well, I loved it (that poor and beige cousin!) and thank you for clarifying things — I thought the Belle of Am’erstt just used plain old dashes — I’m a big dasher, myself, but mostly from indecision regarding commas and such — as always, you entertain and elucidat, MM!
@priskill
Just a bit more elucidatin’…..
My personal favorite for grammar guides is “The Deluxe Transitive Grammar: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed” – Karen Elizabeth Gordon (Pantheon; Revised Edition – 8/10/1993).
The title alone makes it awesome, but the contents are wonderful as well.
Moe Murph
Oh Bosh! Correct Title:
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed”
@Moe Murph — I am all of the above! I, E, & D — I will look for this — vampires and serial commas in the same title ! Thank you, MM!