Showing 24 posts tagged Lit

High-res austinkleon: Jonathan Lethem, The Disappointment Artist: Essays Really liked this. Like so many artist memoirs about their young life, it’s a book about a young artist discovering himself through—surprise!—art. (Is there another story for the young artist? A few, probably.) Two excerpts I wanted to call out. The first, from “Identifying with Your Parents, or The Return of the King,” is about tracing influence: I suffered a kind of nerdish fever for authenticity and origins of all kinds, one which led me into some very strange cultural places. The notion of “influence” compelled me, at irrational depts of my being. Any time I heard mention that, say, David Bowie was only really imitating Anthony Newley, I immediately lost interest in David Bowie and went looking for the source, sometimes with the pitiable results that the example suggests. So I was always moving backward through time… The second, from “”The Beards,” about writing the books you want to read: When I first began to write fiction, at eighteen, I conceived that I would write the novels that Philip K. Dick hadn’t lived to write—that I would continue his work rather than begin my own. Of course, I now think that Philip K. Dick probably lived to write any novel he was capable of writing, as well as a few he wasn’t, but at the time it seemed to me tragic that dozens more didn’t exist for me to read. Lethem’s new essay collection, The Ecstasy of Influence, is at the top of my Christmas list. Warning: “The Beards” will kinda break your heart.

austinkleon:

Jonathan Lethem, The Disappointment Artist: Essays

Really liked this. Like so many artist memoirs about their young life, it’s a book about a young artist discovering himself through—surprise!—art. (Is there another story for the young artist? A few, probably.)

Two excerpts I wanted to call out. The first, from “Identifying with Your Parents, or The Return of the King,” is about tracing influence:

I suffered a kind of nerdish fever for authenticity and origins of all kinds, one which led me into some very strange cultural places. The notion of “influence” compelled me, at irrational depts of my being. Any time I heard mention that, say, David Bowie was only really imitating Anthony Newley, I immediately lost interest in David Bowie and went looking for the source, sometimes with the pitiable results that the example suggests. So I was always moving backward through time…

The second, from “”The Beards,” about writing the books you want to read:

When I first began to write fiction, at eighteen, I conceived that I would write the novels that Philip K. Dick hadn’t lived to write—that I would continue his work rather than begin my own. Of course, I now think that Philip K. Dick probably lived to write any novel he was capable of writing, as well as a few he wasn’t, but at the time it seemed to me tragic that dozens more didn’t exist for me to read.

Lethem’s new essay collection, The Ecstasy of Influence, is at the top of my Christmas list.

Warning: “The Beards” will kinda break your heart.

Half Termite, Half Elephant

lareviewofbooks:

MARK HASKELL SMITH

on Jonathan Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence.
Persistance of Memory © Lou Beach

Jonathan Lethem
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
Doubleday, November 2011. 480 pp.

Jonathan Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc. is a one-man omnibus, and you’re either on it or you’re not.

Read More

Spoiler alert: I’m on it.

High-res anniewerner: thingsiatethatilove: You’re invited to the Emily Books launch party on 11/28 (a week from today) at Housingworks, from 7 to 9.  Thanks to Tumblr there is an open bar for the first hour.  Thank you, Tumblr!  People need an open bar after Thanksgiving. Eileen Myles, the author of Inferno (buy it!) will read something new and we can’t wait to hear it. You can enter a raffle and win an Emily Books subscription and other prizes. Tell your friends and enemies. Please reblog thoroughly! A week from today! Eileen Myles! Free booze! Go, and do likewise.

anniewerner:

thingsiatethatilove:

You’re invited to the Emily Books launch party on 11/28 (a week from today) at Housingworks, from 7 to 9. 

Thanks to Tumblr there is an open bar for the first hour.  Thank you, Tumblr!  People need an open bar after Thanksgiving.

Eileen Myles, the author of Inferno (buy it!) will read something new and we can’t wait to hear it. You can enter a raffle and win an Emily Books subscription and other prizes.

Tell your friends and enemies. Please reblog thoroughly!

A week from today! Eileen Myles! Free booze!

Go, and do likewise.

“Here’s my bright idea for life on earth: better management. The CEO has lost touch with the details. I’m worth as much, but I care; I come down here, I show my face, I’m a real regular. A toast: To our boys and girls in the war, grinding through sand, to everybody here, our host who’s mostly mist, like methane rising from retreating ice shelves. Put me in command. For every town, we’ll have a marching band. For each thoroughbred, a comfortable stable; for each worker, a place beneath the table. For every forward step a stumbling. A shadow over every starlit thing.
Kim Addonizio, from Lucifer at the Starlite”

W. W. Norton: Lucifer at the Starlite

 

“The Taco Bell manager had to call police because Falkner was out cold at the pick-up window and holding up customers behind him… A deputy awoke Falkner and then asked for his ID. Falkner said no before reaching into his bag and presenting the officer with a taco. Another deputy clarified they were asking for an ID, not a taco. Falkner chuckled and began eating the taco.”

“Drunk Florida Man Tries to Use Taco as ID After His Car Catches Fire at Taco Bell” via Miami New Times (via hollybailey)

I think this is the opening of a novel I would very much like to read.