Shorter Stephen Marche in the LRC

"I once met Michael Ondaatje, who I was into before everyone else was. He recommended a dead writer to me. Lots of famous writers have had rejections. Me, too! We're not as cool and up to the minute as some people. Everyone thinks everyone else is running things. I am Canadian, and Canadians are on the outside looking in. (Bet you never heard that before.) America is big, we are not! That's cool, though. We have a lot of immigrants in Toronto, but they all still write like Dickens and Trollope. Wait til they really get started! Toronto in 2010 is such a great place to be for a writer, you don't even have to write about it. Peace out."

(Real thing here.)

Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens

My review of the new memoir by Christopher Hitchens in the Toronto Star.

A wee taste:

From the evidence of Hitch 22, the notorious author and journalist has always been riddled with the same contradictions, conflict fetishism, allergy to boredom and bores (but not boors), and preference for emotion-fueled opinionizing over analytical thought that characterize his recent career as a neoconservative fellow traveler and professional crank.

For more of me on the Hitch, see here.

"Raghead"

Haven't heard that one in a while...

Hey, didn't Rod Steiger play that guy in In the Heat of the Night?

Also:

For those who like that kind of thing...

You are reading what I am blogging about someone else's online account of James Wood's lecture on David Foster Wallace.

Faaaar out, man.

This is funny:

Midway through the lecture it becomes apparent that many of the elders have not read Wallace before. You can tell when Wood reads aloud a particularly disturbing passage from BIHM and some of the older ladies crinkle their faces, their better-humored husbands guffawing resonantly. Later, when Wood glosses Wallace’s suicide, he is stopped mid-sentence by an elaborately coiffured lady in the front row, who demands clarification; when Wood explains that Wallace took his own life in 2008, the lady gasps and turns to her dozing husband.

Worst reality show ever

From TPM:

California Gubernatorial candidate Douglas Hughes (R) is running on a platform of expelling all convicted pedophiles from his state.

Don't worry though, Hughes has a plan for where they'll go: Santa Rosa Island, or as he calls it, "Pedophile Island."

Remember when that kid wandered into the jungle and got attacked by a bunch of nasty little dinosaurs at the beginning of Jurassic Park 2? Yeah, like that. But not dinosaurs.

Monáe is money

I've been listening to a lot of Northern Soul lately, and James Brown's "Brother Rapp" has always been one of my favourites, so this just hits me in the sweet spot:



(Don't know why half the video is cut off. Just double-click it to see it in full.)

Habs

Pretty stunning.

And to the good people of Montreal:

What is David Cameron reading?

So... the U.K.'s new prime minister is an untested Tory heading up a coalition government propped up by a left-of-centre third party. He replaces the stodgy, uninspiring Prime Minister who took over – unelected, and after a long time in charge of the purse strings, waiting for his chance – from a deeply flawed (but charismatic) PM who took his centrist-with-lefty-pretensions party to three straight majorities.

How long before Martin Amis starts sending David Cameron used paperbacks accompanied by glib and self-satisfied personal notes about "cultivating stillness"?

Lukashevsky on WNYC

My friend Alex on the air in New York with a new song and a new musical set-up:



You can listen to the entire show here.

In the photos, Alex looks like a messianic bigamist who performs alongside two of his wives. But that's a good thing, I think.

NB: Alex is recording some music with these two fine singers, but he also has a very limited-edition CD out called Prints of Darkness that has some old and new songs done up with over-the-top orchestration. As far as I know, it is only available at Soundscapes in Toronto or here. Prints, along with the new Johnny Cash and an Orchestra Baobab compilation I found at the Gladstone library, was the soundtrack to a whole pile of unpacking and shelf-hanging I had to do last month

Uno de Mayo

At last: the first day of National Prose Month.

ADDED: Yikes, I was joking - now I hear tell it's actually Short Story Month or sumpin' like that. I've said this before (on this site, I think - too lazy to look), but I always find the idea that literary forms need protecting, like endangered waterfowl, very much beside the point. I'll stick up for a given writer's undeserved obscurity, or argue the merits of an unjustly unloved book or story, but a form? People will read more short stories (if that is, indeed, a desirable thing - let's assume for the sake of argument that it is) if there are good stories written and good critics writing about them and good editors working to get them attention and provide places for them to be read. That's true of all literary forms, though, as well as of all artistic forms and mediums, more or less.

If there is a story (or book) I love and am excited about, I will try and bring attention to it however I can (on this blog, in an email to a friend, as part of a drunken rant), but I could care less whether "more people," defined in the abstract, read stories in general. It won't change a word.

Maybe there are too many stories being written and read. Ever think of that, huh?

M.I.A. commits gingercide

Holy shit.

No, really: holy shit.

ADDED - My new line: M.I.A.'s video makes Children of Men look like Three Men and a Baby!

Silverman is gold

Well, sorta. I've never fully copped to the potty-mouthed pixie thing that Sarah Silverman does - and does relentlessly. Unless you are the kind of person who goes out of your mind at the sight of a purty girl being ironically racist and obnoxious with no real critical/cultural intent or meaning other than "I can't believe she just said that! Outrageous!!!", it gets tired quick* - but all the same, a gig is a gig, so I jumped at the chance to interview her for the new issue of Fashion magazine. How's that for gratitude?

* Though that Matt Damon thing was a hoot. So was The Great Schlep. Maybe she just works best in small portions. How's that for faint praise?

Keep reaching for the stars

From the AP story on NASA big new plans:

Landing on an asteroid and giving it a well-timed nudge "would demonstrate once and for all that we're smarter than the dinosaurs and can avoid what they didn't," said White House science adviser John Holdren.

Yes, NASA will spend billions of dollars to prove we are smarter than giant, lumbering lizards with acorn-sized brains who all died out when it got a little too cold or a little too dark (maybe).

Next up: proving once and for all that we can drive better than Neanderthal man, that mouth-breathing degenerate.

(On the other hand, does anyone else feel this "land on asteroid to prepare for Mars" plan is maybe just a positive-sounding cover story for "Operation Move Big Fucking Planet Killer"?)

Chain poem in The Globe & Mail

Six poets, ten lines each, and the theme of "Spring," but without the use of "Spring" words (blossom, flowers, etc.). And they couldn't know who else was participating.

The phrase "herding cats" came to mind when I first thought of doing this, but it turned out to be fairly easy to throw together, thanks to the six very generous poets who agreed to pitch in.

Read it here.

Compare and contrast: inhuman visions edition

This:



(Watch the whole thing. Seriously.)

With this:



I was going to say that the Thing clip was not for the squeamish, but really, both clips are a little stomach-turning at times.

One more Fahey farewell

I posted this tune before, and got a grateful message about it from the person for whom I am posting it again today.

Time is not on my side

I have been offline moving house, twisting my ankle (and the night away), catching up on overdue freelance work, and suchlike.

I did, however, take the time to answer a couple of questions for Open Book.

(I dare you to read my answers and not feel the urge to punch me in the face. I couldn't.)

Take care

And all words aside:

Get a job

Boo hoo, twas always thus.

Top o' the mornin'

Happy St Pat's, everyone. Speaking of which, I'm always a little surprised to see people wearing "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" buttons. Don't the Irish spread disease? Is that still true?

Anyway, I am of English descent (with a little Welsh, I think, to keep me humble), so I will be watching the day's festivities from the windows of the ancestral manse. I do so enjoy all the charming dancing, singing, drinking, fighting, and fornicating.

In honour of this day, I offer you my favourite Irish drinking song: