Counterbalance

My Boyfriend's Back (Heaney and Hagan on Burns)

Longtime readers (can I say that? I think I can...) of this blog will know that I've been on an Irish literature kick for a while now, which culiminated (but did not, actually, end) in a trip to Ireland a few months ago. While in Ireland, I fell fast and hard for Seamus Heaney's work and devoured it as I toured his gray/green lands and dark/cozy pubs.

So imagine my pure delight when I discovered this yummy tidbit in The Scotsman: Heaney has written a new poem in celebration of poet Robert Burns. That's, like, poetry porn!

But there's more salacious goodness: Andrew O'Hagan, who wrote the preface to Burns's latest poetry collection (A Night Out with Robert Burns), reads the new  poem aloud and we get to listen! Right here!  Crackling fire and poetry in a dark Irish pub: sounds like home. I'm ready for my Guinness now.

A Counterbalance Secret Revealed...

...at LAist. 

(As long as you promise to respect me in the morning.)

LA Weekly Checks Out Lydia Millet's How the Dead Dream

Over at LA Weekly, Marc Weingarten takes a peek at Lydia Millet's latest, How the Dead Dream.

I uber-loved Oh Pure and Radiant Heart and I've had my eye on this novel as a must-read for 2008.

Weingarten quickly cuts to the chase:

"If Lydia Millet played by the normal rules of social satire, she might have been as large as T.C. Boyle by now. But whereas most satirists are looking for laughs much of the time, regardless of how sharp their knives might be, Millet is more the whimsical polemicist. Her novels are fanciful and surreal; rather than gently nudging everyday life into the realm of fluffy absurdity, she's trying to knock reality upside the head, thus revealing our venal and craven natures to ourselves."

Books, People

The Book, The People, The People of the Book, The People In the Book, The Book About People, The Book About Other People, The Other Book About People.

Am I the only one who has been confused for weeks (weeks!) about these two books, thinking, strangely, they were one in the same? I seriously could not sort out how Zadie Smith had hooked up with Geraldine Brooks for what some were calling an intense re-retelling of the Haggadah and what others were calling a hilarious read on character.

Consider me sorted. (But, really, how did this happen that two books with such bizarrely similar titles were published on nearly the same day this month?)

Kennedy's Day

Guess it's time to pony up and read A.L. Kennedy's Day. I've heard nothing but lovely things - great, remarkable things - about it and her just-announced win of the Costa award just about makes this "should" reading in the best kind of way.

A review of A.L.Kennedy's Day will be up at LAist later this month.

Previously: A.L. Kennedy Pleads for More Books in Scottish Schools & Libraries

UPDATE: Fiona Simpson has an interesting piece at The Guardian on A.L. Kennedy and her recent win. A tidbit:

"Kennedy's writing has always slipped the leash of expectation, leaving gender stereotypes far behind. She's un-pigeon-hole-able because inimitable."

Housekeeping (Because Let's Just Call it What it Is, Shall We?)

I'm still wrestling with big things. My head throbs from the over-thinking and over-analysis and over-worrying about the state of my writerliness, the state of my author interviews (which should have been more plentiful this past week but I'm, well, over-thinking things and so obviously my questions were so bizarre and over-wrought that I had to self-edit and simply say no), the state of my daily gig (which is also in terrible flux and so I find I'm simply fretting, fretting all day long and don't know what, really, to do) and the state of so many other things.  Got that? Fretting over many things (some of which have absolutely nothing to do with me) +/- throbbing head = wrestling.

But:

• I managed to get through 3,000+ (yes, that's right) Google Reader posts
• I managed to get through 1,200+ emails
• I apologize to all those who were in town in December and January that emailed about getting together. I regret that I failed to respond to you because, damn, I would really have liked to meet with you and chat with you and talk books. And life. And other things.
• Full disclosure: I am studying up for my Wine Novice column over at LAist and I've not read a speck (a speck!) of new fiction so far this year. I'm feeling a little guilty about this, but also have so much to say about my voracious wine reading. Robert Parker Jr., watch out!
  
• I talked a big game last year about upcoming roundtables. I fully intend to get to them and to those of you who emailed about roundtable topics, I'll chat you up soon. Really.
• I still owe several Part IIs, a few Part IIIs, and even a few Part I's of readings I failed to get to. All in good time. Maybe.
• I've felt, lately, that this whole blog concept might need revamping, revising, revisiting, re-something.  I try very hard to share something different, something no one else is covering or at least not covering in quite the same way. If I ever feel (as I have these past weeks) that I'm just giving you more of what you could get elsewhere, I'll go silent again. I think. Still working through it, but in my endless over-thinking, I've at least sorted out one thing: I want what I do (everything I do) to matter. I know, simpleton-esque and naive. But there it is. From my day job to my writing to my writing about writing, I want the work to matter. Otherwise, why the hell else are we here?
• And so, this concludes the long, annual, house-keeping rant about what needs doing, what's brewing and what's on the horizon.

And back into the fray we go...

Thursday is Full Again...

The week in bookish events is up at LAist. Yet again, the literary gods have conspired together to ensure that all the really yummy bookish events take place the same evening, requiring me to make choices.  Since I've got a lot of much bigger choices roiling around in my head, I'm extra-torn. 

If I could be in several places at once, this is where I'd be on Thursday:

• Steve Martin (with Carol Burnett!) reading Born Standing Up @ Wilshire Theater
• Christopher Looby discussing Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself @ Book Soup
• Susan Wheeler reading Record Palace (and maybe some of her poetry?) @ Hammer Museum

Decisions, decisions.

What If I Never Write a Novel?

Wrestling with the big, existential question has sucked the life out of me the past week. I'm not sure when it occurred to me, but sometime in the past eleven days, I had what at first seemed like a breakthrough idea: what if I'm a non-fiction writer at heart, not a fiction writer? A weight was lifted. Of course! Non-fiction! Makes sense, right? I blog. I write essays. I pseudo-report for LAist (I would never pretend to be a proper journalist, much as I try to adhere to journalistic standards and ethics in reporting). Ah, yes, non-fiction.

So. Much. Easier. Than. Fiction. (At least for me.)

Moments after this seemingly brilliant, albatross-removing concept presented itself before me, another thought darkened my door: "but...so does that mean...i'm not...ever going to write a novel?...and if not, well, what does that mean? am i okay with that?...because...i don't think i'd be okay with that...oh my god...never write a novel?...but, well, there'd be less pressure...less fretting...that would free up a hell of a lot of time and worry to do something else...but what else...what else matters this much?..."

I've been imagining what my life would be like without the desire to write fiction. I've been trying it on, seeing how it fits. And so, it has been silent here. As I sort out (for the umpteenth time) if I have it in me to slog through it all, to keep moving forward, even though I feel like sandbags weigh my ankles down with every step. As I tell myself again and again "If you were really meant to be a novelist, wouldn't you have written one by now?"  It's a familiar refrain. I saved you the many blog posts about it because, well, you've heard it all before. This is hardly new territory.

Glimmers of hope:

• There Will Be Blood - I almost cried upon leaving the theater last night, not because the story moved me as much as it moved others, but because I was in the presence of so much greatness. That is storytelling. That is character. That is how more films could, and I'd argue, should, be made.
• The Wire - I'm not watching Season 5 yet (no TV), but am re-watching Seasons 1 - 4. Not new information, I know. But, damn. Such good writing I am both ashamed to call myself a writer and inspired to be better.
• Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor - I'm re-reading some of the stories. Not all of them do it for me, but my goodness when they do, it's like I'm watching greatness unfurl before me.

And so, I wrestle. More soon.

New Etgar Keret Short Story: Freeze!

It is alarming, shocking, and downright...weird?...how much data you can miss in a week.  I might as well be in Tahiti sipping Tahiti Drink or a Hinano, blissfully aware that I'm unaware of all the data that is being posted and read and discussed and commented upon and re-discussed in my absence.

But this - this being here but being sick and missing out on so much that it's no different if I had been in Tahiti - this, in the words of Walter Sobcheck, will not stand, man.

How have I missed the new Etgar Keret story in LA Weekly? It posted on the 2nd! It is worth a read, as all his stuff is.  I'm guessing it is part of his forthcoming collection of short stories, The Girl on the Fridge, due out from FSG in April.

The obligatory teaser with gratuitous swearing and sexual innuendo:

"Suddenly I could do it. I’d say “Freeze!” and everyone would freeze, just like that, in the middle of the street. Cars, bikes, even those little motor scooters delivery guys use, they’d all stop in their tracks. And I’d walk past them till I found the prettiest girls. I’d tell them to drop their shopping bags or I’d take them off a bus, bring them home and fuck their brains out. It was great — it was really, really great. “Freeze!” “Come here!” “Lie down on the bed!” And after that, wham-bam. The girls I had were incredible, centerfold material. I felt fantastic. I felt like a king. Until my mother butted in."

I'm sure it's only a matter of time (or, more precisely, about as long as it will take me to read all those unread Google reader posts) before I learn that this has already been covered ad nauseum in my fever-hazed absence.

If I yelled "Freeze!" loudly and with purpose would it convince you I'm on the mend and will be back in better (always dicey to say "top" here, eh?) form soon?

Jami Attenberg Interview

My brief interview with Jami Attenberg, author of the excellent debut novel The Kept Man, is up at LAist.

Sneak peek excerpt:

"Sometimes taking pictures feels almost like cheating, because now I can have this visual record of something, so I don't have to remember every little details all the time.  For example, there are a few scenes in the book that take place at Mount St. Helens, and I had actually visited there a few months before writing the scenes with the intention of using the location in the book.  When I actually sat down to write those scenes I pulled out the pictures as a reference, and described what I saw in those photos in the voice of my narrator, Jarvis.  It flowed very naturally and I remember it being a thrilling creative moment for me, to be able to combine the two passions.  It doesn't happen like that all that often, but when it does it's a real rush."

Jami will be reading at 4pm on Sunday @ Book Soup and at 8pm @ Mountain Bar for Jim Ruland's deliciously irreverent Vermin on the Mount, where she'll be joined by Veronica Gonzalez, Doug Cordell and Sam Quinones.

UPDATE: This is what happens when you have a fever and leave 1000+ posts unread in your Google reader for three days: Ed and Maud also have excellent interviews with Jami. Alas, I'm late to the dance! Fever be damned!