“It can not be that I monopolize / The making of the songs that give you praise / Or that such pools as are your dearest eyes / Have just one bather through the unclear days. / Then, let me take my place amid the pack, / If I so pack my songs with your rare worth / There were no quality they then should lack / But they were bettered by that happy death.” A previously unpublished Ezra Pound sonnet selling at auction is always newsworthy–especially when it fetches nearly $12,000. Here is a related Millions piece about the difficult poetry of Ezra Pound, John Berryman, and Ted Berrigan.
In a Room of the Auction House
Plea of Innocence
Recommended Reading: On the ethics of self-publishing or: Can a convicted serial killer publish his version of the story?
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Just Right
The National Rifle Association is featuring a series of reimagined fairy tales on their website. The only difference? Way more guns. In the debut story, Hansel and Gretel don’t bemoan their lack of food since they had been taught from birth to hunt with guns for sustenance. No, it’s not yet April Fools’ Day.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Solnit, Walls, Kwan, Sullivan, Silver, Lee, al-Shaykh
New this week: The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit, The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth Silver, Bobcat by Rebecca Lee, and a retelling of One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan al-Shaykh, with a foreword by Mary Gaitskill.
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Thomas Pynchon: The Comic Strip
Galley Cat highlights a 2003 comic strip, “Thomas Pynchon, Man of Mystery,” that is unfortunately yet to go into syndication.
Strange Bedfellows Department: Glenn Beck and The French Insurrectionists
You may have heard that Glenn Beck, sower of anxiety about Obamanomics, is also a shill for gold coin dealer Goldline. But here’s a conspiracy theory for you: Does Glenn Beck also have a stake in the modish French theoretical organ Semiotext(e)? The truth is out there, people.
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Tom Stoppard’s Pink Floyd Play
“Sir Tom Stoppard has written a play for BBC Radio 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon featuring Bill Nighy and Rufus Sewell.” Huh, so it looks like Stoppard still isn’t slowing down.
Too Crazy to Believe
“Any day’s news supplies plots so fantastic that most make-believe story lines pale in comparison.” Author John Altman in the LA Times about the difficulty of writing fiction during Trump’s presidency. “My current novel-in-progress concerns North Korea,” writes Altman, “and each day’s headlines endanger its premise. But too much second-guessing hobbles a writer. One can only take a deep breath, remind oneself that war with North Korea would jeopardize much more than a humble spy thriller, and forge ahead, hoping for the best.”
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