September 30, 2003
recall woes
Okay, so it's happening in a week. Let's see if I can put it succintly*. So. Davis is a crook.
I ask you: whom would you vote for and why?
*Kindly append "allegedly" to all these statements.
cry, the beloved country
Oprah has chosen Alan Paton's book for her next book club. I remember reading it when I was fifteen or sixteen and really loving it. I wonder what I would think about it now. The book was made into a movie a few years ago. Haven't seen it.
September 29, 2003
party goes on
The Paris Review is going forward with their fiftieth anniversary celebration.
paging copyeditors
Moroccan human tights minister meets head of UN HR commission.
brand spanking new
Forgive the cliche. And forgive the lack of accent on 'cliche' while you're at it. Anyway, the new issue of Small Spiral Notebook is up. Check it out.
B&N publishing
B&N, charming little publisher of literary fiction.
heller profile
I was going to post a rant about that Zoe Heller profile in the Guardian (you know, the kind where they spend half the article talking about what she's wearing) but Jessa beat me to it.
Update: La Muselivre also has a go at it.
September 28, 2003
more reviews...
of Who Killed Daniel Pearl: one in the Guardian by Peter Guttridge and the other by Christopher Hitchens in Slate.
guterson's writer's block
David Guterson talks about getting writer's block after September 11.
"I was totally absorbed in the real world, the politics, the history, the news, and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world. ... When I finally could return to writing the novel, it was in fits and starts. It was a real struggle. I lost a whole year, and it was not a good year. ... I assumed there were other people, other artists in a similar state. Besides, writer's block is a well-known phenomenon. Other writers have had it. I finally figured this was my time."
Guterson's new novel, Our Lady of the Forest, comes out this week.
bush's kelly case
It looks like the Wilson/Plame story is getting some traction. Even CNN is now reporting on the former US ambassador to Niger, who publicly criticized the Bush administration for (falsely) claiming that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa, and whose wife, Valerie Plame, was subsequently identified as a CIA officer (potentially endangering her safety) by Robert Novak, a Republican columnist. Time magazine has a brief recap of what's been going on since the "end of major combat." Meanwhile, in Britain, Blair might have to contend with a new inquest into the death of David Kelly.
September 26, 2003
another farewell
George Plimpton has died. The multitalented Plimpton was a journalist, a writer, a football player, a boxer, a trapeze artist, and an actor. His legacy, though, will unarguably be the Paris Review. I don't think I'll look forward to my rejections from them in quite the same way.
It's been one of those weeks. I think I might take an early break today.
crossed words
We often hear about additions to the dictionary but who knew that there are plenty of words that get thrown out? Apparently the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster's can only keep track of so many words in the dictionary.
Link via h20boro lib blog.
seth blog
Seth Shafer is guesting on Maud Newton today. Hop on over and say hi.
September 25, 2003
Banned Books Week
The last week in September is Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read. The American Library Association has a list of the most frequently challenged books and authors of 2002, plus lots of other info on challenged and banned books.
Maxine Hong Kingston on NPR
Karen Grigsby Bates interviewed Maxine Hong Kingston yesterday on NPR's Day to Day. Kingston's new book is The Fifth Book of Peace. Chinese legend has it there are three books of peace, which contain instructions for ending wars, but the books are lost. Listen to the interview to find out what the fourth and fifth books are.
farewell
I've just learned of the passing of Edward Said, the famed Palestinian-American intellectual, literary crictic, and pianist. He had suffered from leukemia for a few years now, but the news still came as a shock to his readers worldwide. Here's his faculty profile at Columbia. Said is best known for Orientalism and The Question of Palestine. I would also recommend his memoir, Out of Place. In 1999, Said partnered with Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim to create the West Eastern Divan, an orchestra of Arab and Israeli youths. The orchestra has performed in Europe and, recently, in Morocco (its first performance in an Arab country.) Over the last few years, Edward Said has been the subject of venomous attacks questioning his right to call himself Palestinian, among other things. This Slate article recaps it all (and there's also this Salon article by Christopher Hitchens in defense of the Palestinian appellation.)
I still remember the first time I read Edward Said and how happily surprised I was that an Arab point of view was rendered with such sharp wit and academic erudition. With his passing, Arab Americans have lost a great advocate, friend, and man.
Update: The obit in the NY Times. The Guardian's obit.
Update 2: A reaction from the UN Secretary. And Alexander Cockburn talks about the more personal Said, the man who "never lost the capacity to be wounded by the treachery and opportunism of supposed friends. (..) His skin was so, so thin, I think because he knew that as long as he lived, as long as he marched onward as a proud, unapologetic and vociferous Palestinian, there would be some enemy on the next housetop down the street eager to pour sewage on his head."
Update 3: The Edward Said archive is also available, though it seems to be getting pounded.
Update 4: Anglo-Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif writes about Said.
Update 5: Needless to say, the death of Said has been quite a blow to me. Even now as I sit in a coffee house, I feel like touching the arm of the stranger next to me and say, "Have you heard?" I had been waiting to see something from Hitchens ever since I heard the terrible news yesterday morning. Hitchens, you'll recall, had only weeks ago written a scathing review of his longtime friend's book, Orientalism, for the Atlantic. Well, here is Hitchens' obit in Slate.
Update 6: Edward Said: The Traveller and the Exile.
September 24, 2003
happy anniversary
to me. Moorishgirl is now two years old. Look for guest bloggers to pop in this week and next to help me celebrate.
clinton memoir in china
Looks like the Clinton memoir was somehow purged of "offensive" material before its publication in China:
Nearly everything Mrs. Clinton had to say about China, including descriptions of her own visits here, former President Bill Clinton's meetings with Chinese leaders and her criticisms of Communist Party social controls and human rights policies, has been shortened or selectively excerpted to remove commentary deemed offensive by Beijing.
Link via Publishers' Lunch.
harper's weekly review
read it here.
muaaaa-hahaha
The beast bites its own head.
tres cool
Al here... just thought I'd share an email I just received:
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch sdtuy at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht odrer the lterets in a wrod are, the olny iprmnoett tihng is taht the frist and lsat lteetr be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pormbels . Tihs is bcuseae the haumn mnid deos not raed ervey lteetr by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
The psycholinguist in me is fascinated... I wonder if this was a real study at Cmabrgde?
you'll get it straight from the horse's mouth
Now that the Pentagon has one of its own on CNN, it shouldn't be too difficult to educate the American people about the righteousness of the Administration's policies. Elsewhere, I see that the democratization of Iraq is in full swing, as Pentagon-backed Chalabi is denying press access to the major Arab outlets.
September 23, 2003
wrong on so many levels
Last week I went to the reading that Monica Ali gave at Dutton’s in Brentwood. Ali read an excerpt from further along in the book, when her character Nazneen, a Bengali village girl transplanted to Tower Hamlets in London, goes with her husband Chanu and her daughters sightseeing around the city. After the reading was over, the hostess, in a white dentelle shirt, red flower in her hair, was the first to ask a question. “Please,” she said, “tell us about yourself.” Her interest in the author, if not the book, was apparent. An old man at the front wanted to know “Did you grow up in Tower Hamlets?” and so on. I thought when a book makes the bestseller list, it meant that people were actually reading it. Silly me. They're just interested in the pretty girl on the cover. But it got worse. Someone else asked, “Were you raised black or white?” If she was stunned, Ali didn’t let on. She explained that she was in fact half Bengali and half British, that she was born in Dhaka and bred in London, etc. The man persisted, “Which parent were you closer to?” “Who did you talk to more?” he demanded. Welcome to the melting pot.
what did we expect? one person one vote?
This is nothing new, but Tarek has a good post on touch-screen voting machines and the people who provide them.
that'll show them
Since the Booker seems to like 'em younger these days, a bunch of people put together a prize for writers over the age of 50. It's called the Saga Award for Wit and the winner is Alexander McCall Smith.
September 22, 2003
the orchestra of fes
had a performance of Andalusian music in New York last week, reviewed here.
levy's book reviewed
Bernard-Henry Levy's book, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, published in the U.S. by Melville House, is reviewed here and here.
kindly note
New additions to the must-read list: The Old Hag who says it better than most, the always amusing La MuseLivre, and the bitingly funny The Antic Muse. Also, Jessa is back.
try not to throw up
as you read this article on the ceremony that was held last week to celebrate 216 years of the Constitution. Take this tidbit:
We have seen freedom's power in Europe and Asia and Africa and Latin America, and we will see freedom's power in the Middle East," Bush said, addressing about 200 guests.
As Dubya happily shoulders his White Man's Burden, someone should send him a world map with the following neatly outlined in red Sharpie (tm): Cyprus, Belarus and Armenia (in Europe), China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka (in Asia), Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala, and Colombia (in Latin America) and pretty much all of Africa. But wait, there's more:
Bush then added, "Every person in every culture has the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Except for those who might stand in the way of oil companies.
poet laureate profile
Though Britain has had a poet laureate for centuries, the United States has had one only since 1986, when legislators renamed the position of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. The Library itself now describes the poet laureate, perhaps alarmingly, as 'the nation's official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans.I laughed out loud at "lightning rod" even if tears might have been more appropriate. Stephen Burt has a profile of poet laureate Louise Glück in the Boston Globe.
September 19, 2003
took the words right out of my mouth
Why can't these authors write what they really think when they see the Booker shortlist? It would make a refreshing change to read an 800-word piece that just said: "Bastards! Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!" The most important thing for any writer is honesty, as I always say to Martin Amis when he rings me up for advice.John O'Farrell on why it should have been him.
"yeah, right" department
According to these breathless reports and baseless hysteria, some have convinced the American Library Association that under the bipartisan Patriot Act, the FBI is not fighting terrorism. Instead, agents are checking how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel. Now you may have thought with all this hysteria and hyperbole, something had to be wrong. Do we at the Justice Department really care what you are reading? No.That's Attorney-General John Ashcroft, defending his department's ability to look at library records. Boy, that remark just makes me feel great. Especially when he uses the word "hysteria" in reference to people like the ALA. I mean, aren't librarians just the kind of people that you think of when you think of hysteria and hyperbole? Link via H20boro Lib blog.
don't think that'll wipe the plastic smile off his face
Bustamante is getting a little creative with the Terminator-who-won't-debate-others:
The latest ambush came at a candidate debate here Wednesday that featured four prominent candidates sitting next to an empty chair that had been reserved for Schwarzenegger, who has shown no interest in attending any forum but one scheduled for next week in which he and his rivals will know the questions in advance.
After asking repeatedly, "Where's Arnold?" Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante, the only major Democrat on the recall ballot, proposed that all the leading candidates in the election skip next week's debate and instead try to embarrass Schwarzenegger by holding their own unscripted session outside of the site where the forum will be held.
Link via Daily Kos.
the bookseller of kabul
Anthonia Hodgson's book, a bestseller in Norway and now in the UK, is running into some PR trouble. The man whose life is chronicled by Hodgson, and who risked his life for years selling books in Kabul, is threatening to sue. Hodgson and Publisher aren't scared.
Via Publishers' Lunch.
September 18, 2003
open thread
I have to run to a meeting and then I have to run to a doctor's appointment. Why don't you entertain yourselves with this open thread? Use the comments section to post, rant, or link.
and we complain about others' wild theories
This is unsurprising. After all, a good percentage of Americans thought the hijackers were Iraqi (or Ai-raqi, I suppose.) Anyway, David Ploz has a piece in Slate on what you think you know about September 11 but don't. Check it out.
September 17, 2003
'i became the profane pervert arab blogger'
The Guardian has the latest on Salam Pax's blog experience and how he became the Baghdad-blogger-with-a-book-deal.
missouri review
The latest issue of the Missouri Review came in the mail yesterday. It contains the winning story from their contest last year, "Custodian" by Daniel Coshnear. It also has a story by Steve Almond called "Wired for Life". (By the way, Almond is guesting on Bookslut and he's got a message for you if you write fiction from the neck up.)
novel localization
LanguageHat has a post on the lengths to which publishers go to "localize" a novel. If the novel was originally published in Britain, say, some changes might be made prior to its U.S. publication. But in the case of A.S. Byatt's Possession, the differences seem to go beyong localization efforts. Here are two paragraphs that he cites:
The U.K. version:
...he saw himself as a failure and felt vaguely responsible for this. He was a small man, with very soft, startling black hair and small regular features. Val called him Mole, which he disliked. He had never told her so.
The U.S. version:
...he saw himself as a failure and felt vaguely responsible for this. He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women. He was generally unaware of these feelings, since he paid little attention to what people thought about him, which was part of his attraction. Val called him Mole, which he disliked. He had never told her so.
Why the extensive changes? You'll have to hop on over to LanguageHat to find out.
September 16, 2003
signs multiply
And what I'd like to know is: Can I get that on a T-shirt?
booker shortlist
The Booker shortlist has been announced: Margaret Atwood, Monica Ali, Damon Galgut, Zoe Heller, DBC Pierre, and Clare Morrall have made the cut. The BBC has brief profiles of the authors.
If you're in the L.A. area, you can hear Monica Ali read from Brick Lane at Dutton's Brentwood on Thursday.
moroccan textiles
The New York Times has a brief review of The Fabric of Moroccan Life, which is currently showing at the National Museum of African Art. The exhibit showcases textiles and costumes from urban and rural areas, and illustrates the full range of the multicultural Morocco, with items from Berber, Jewish, and Arab artisans.
September 14, 2003
king honor
Stephen King will receive a National Book medal for distinguished contribution to American letters this November. Previous recipients include John Updike, Arthur Miller, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. Let the mud slinging begin.
le menteur
Based on statistical analyses comparing the texts of dozens of plays, two French researchers claim that most of Moličre's comedies (including Tartuffe and Le Misanthrope) were written by the more highbrow Corneille. This finding has inspired Moličre, Corneille, Rumsfeld, an Op-Ed by Daniel Mendelsohn.
liberal books popular
Around this time last year, there was a lot of talk about the fact that conservative/pro-war books were selling more briskly than the liberal/anti-war ones. Then Stupid White Men happened, and with it the Scott Ritter and Noam Chomsky bestsellers. The trend is now stronger: With the exception of the telebimbo-whose-name-shall-not-be-used-on-this-site, the New York Times non-fiction best-seller list is now dominated by liberal authors: Not just Michael Moore, but also Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them), Joe Conason (Big Lies), Jim Hightower (Thieves in High Places) etc.
bush caption
Help Oliver come up with a caption.
September 12, 2003
i'd read it
Mena, the kick-ass co-creator of Movable Type, talks about meeting Howard Dean at a fundraiser. She told him he needs to get a weblog. Go read the whole thing.
more on snark
Neal Pollack writes to Moby about the Believer manifesto and the furor over their snarkwatch. Elsewhere, Gawker likens Eggers to "a demented 80s Larry Flynt."
adieu johnny cash
I'm not a huge fan of country music, but he was a fantastic exception.
how to groom a fetus for lit success
I can't believe Margaret Atwood is reading to my unborn child. It gets annoying very quickly after that. I nearly choked on the last line.
September 11, 2003
the anniversary
You're awoken by the sound of a ringing phone. You nudge your better half, but he doesn't move. You mutter something about how it's always you who picks up the phone. Then you do. You hear the voice at the other end. Then you say "huh?" Because It can't possibly be true. It musn't. You ask your friend to say It again. Then you jump out of bed, shake your better half, drop the phone, turn the TV on, all at once it seems. And It is true. You cry out, you make phone calls, you donate money, you try to donate blood. You cry. You pray. Oh how you pray that It isn't the work of your co-religionists. You maintain hope, even as the facts are trickling in, and then when the perpetrators' names are announced, you cry as much out of sorrow as of rage. Pundits turn hysterical. Harrassment and hate crimes follow. Some people speak out against this. You feel somewhat better. You put a flag up on your house. You try to speak up, too. You phone in during talk shows. You post on the Web. You write Op-Eds. Your better half pleads with you to please keep a low profile. He worries about you. You continue on. The hysteria seems to subside, but in its place is a new vision. The world is nicely, neatly split now between "Us" and "Them." When you disagree with this, you're told "If you're not with us, you're against us." You get a few nasty comments here and there. But your friends tell you not to worry. After all, you're told, you don't "look" like one of Them, whatever that means. And in the background, It won't go away. It is there. For a few weeks, a few months, you continue on. Then you start to wonder why you have to defend yourself, explain, contextualize, recite, answer, nod, smile. You stop. You decide to just be.
September 10, 2003
watch out for a book by his manicurist
Ala Bashir, Saddam's personal physician, has a book deal with a Norwegian publisher.
the other blair update
Jayson Blair has found a publisher for his memoir. He tells Variety that he will continue to write. "The game plan after this is to move to fiction." Maybe he thinks he'll be right at home there. Fool.
Via Publishers Marketplace.
LRB essay on blair
Peter Clarke traces the changes in Tony Blair's position on Iraq from the start of the crisis in August 2002 to the invasion last March. Blair's initial support of the US, Clarke argues, was "a justifiable prudential strategy" but by the winter of this year, "Blair's rhetoric shifted gear, from conditional to imperative and from consequential to moral. In the process the issue changed. The problem was no longer to identify and find and contain the weapons of mass destruction that were the basis of the case put to the UN. The task was redefined, increasingly explicitly, as that of overthrowing the forces of evil represented by Saddam Hussein and his regime. When Blair talked, as he did increasingly, of being judged by history, it was in these virtually providential terms. Hence his retrospective claim that history would forgive him, even if no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, presumably because he had put on the whole armour of God and stood against the wiles of the Devil."
Blair Must Go.
thanks
To those who have written me asking to guest on this site. Many thanks indeed. I'm back now, but I might pull a Maud and have guests on Fridays. We shall see.
September 09, 2003
indonesian sastra-wangi
It's called chick-lit here, and sastra-wangi in Indonesia. It's written by women, and features female heroines. The book covers have "dreamy black and white photos of these writers." If this sounds familiar, then so should this complaint:
"[The marketing] may help sell the books, but it does little to reveal their literary merits. And that's a problem for 32-year-old first time novelist Nukila Amal, who's resisting the "sastra wangi" tag. "That label is really negative," she said. "Writers should be categorised in genre or style and spirit, not on their physical appearance." For that reason Nukila decided against using her photo on her novel Cala Ibi (Hummingbird). "
Read the BBC article here.
set your TiVo
Whoopi Goldberg's new sitcom debuted tonight on NBC. And it's something of a milestone: it features a character of Middle-Eastern origin, a first since, well, let's see, since Kathy Najimy played Olive in that awful, awful sitcom, Veronica's Closet . The character in question is Nassim, an Iranian man who immigrated to the United States after the 1979 revolution. ("How did you come to the United States" "I ran." Get it? Get it?) Nassim is played by Omid Djalili. I liked him in this. He has good comic ability, something you wouldn't know from the roles he's played so far (usually, the dumb, bumbling Arab, like in The Mummy.) Set your TiVo, why don't you?
plot twist
Pierre Robert, the Frenchman who is accused of being the mastermind of the May 16 bombings in Casablanca and who is on trial in the capital Rabat, now claims that he had once worked for the French secret service (the DST.) Meanwhile, the French Embassy doesn't seem too eager to help him.
harper's weekly review
Roger Dodge sums it all up for you. Have a look. Then go take a Valium.
September 08, 2003
welcome back, moby
MobyLives is back. Go get your fix. He's a got a guest column by Steve Almond on book blurbing and a link to an article about the recent excavation of a mass grave which might contain the remains of Federico Garcia Lorca.
Arrival Day 2003
Jonathan has a neat post on Arrival Day, commemorating the arrival of the first Jewish immigrants to America. It inspired me to find out more about the origins of the Moroccan Jewish community: This article says that Jews landed in Morocco before the Romans.
Note: Jonathan has moved. Time to update your links.
kafaesque
A glimpse into daily life at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay in this SunSpot article. Interrogations, solitary confinement, and suicide attempts. Oh, and prisoners who offer leads get burgers. Those who may not have anything to offer are out of luck. (Warning: the tone of the article is rather revolting.)
Link via Metafilter.
james on snark
Clive James gives his two cents on "snarky" reviews (the most recent example of which is arguably Laura Miller's review of Chuck Palahniuk's Diary.) He offers something that, human nature being what I is, I think every writer should consider: "When you say a man writes badly, you are trying to hurt him. When you say it in words better than his, you have succeeded. It would be better to admit this fact, and admit that all adverse reviews are snarks to some degree, than to indulge the sentimental wish that malice might be debarred from the literary world." Via Publishers' Marketplace online newsletter.
freudenberger
Okay. Every time I check my referrer logs (which is er, everyday) I find that a few people land on this site looking for "Nell Freudenberger" and "Nell Freundenberger picture." Okay guys (and I'm using "guys" in a non gender-specific way) here is a picture:
Satisfied?
weekend celebrity sighting
Suzan Lori-Parks getting coffee at the Cow's End in Venice. It takes a lot for an Angelena to be star-struck, but there you have it.
Hong Kingston in P&W
P&W has a profile of one of my all-time favorite authors, Maxine Hong Kingston. She has a new book coming out: The Fifth Book of Peace.
The Namesake reviews
are trickling in, usually accompanied by an author photo--even in the NY Times, where Michiko Kakutani gave it a rave.
booker odds
If you think you can predict the Booker shortlist, try entering the Guardian's contest, where correct predictions could be rewarded with a set of books from the shortlist.
September 04, 2003
lynch book titles
Desultory Turgescence has a list of rejected titles from the upcoming Jessica Lynch book being written by Rick Bragg (examples: How I Turned A Car Crash In Iraq Into A Million Dollars, or How I Killed Saddam And Saved Humanity From Satan And Certain Death, etc.)
it takes all kinds
I was sifting through my vacation emails when I came across this comment, posted on the blog in response to an old post of mine. I'm copying it below:
"I'm not sure what this site is all about as I only gave it a few
minutes, obviously not enough.
Anyway, why I'm here is because I did a search for "no germans allowed" and this site came up tops.
Why? Well I have a guestbook on my site - Nutrition for a Living Planet - and over the last few months I have only been getting postings from sour krauts who've turned it into a Blog for the purpose of promoting there own companies (SPAM) so I put a sign up "NO GERMANS ALLOWED" anyway it didn't work so I now have had to stop my guestbook and I was wondering if there was anyone else out there who forbids bloody Germans to enter their pages."
It's things like this that brighten my day and make me feel this blog is worthwhile.