Blog Archives

Odd Thought on Luck

What do people who don’t believe in luck say instead of “wish me luck”?

“Wish me a favorable series of deterministic events that have already been set in motion by causality outside of our awareness!”

What ELSE Has J Been Reading? [Bonus Edition, 18 Nov 11]

Wow, I spoke too soon.  Normally I publish the daily reading around noon, and I should have waited today, too.  Lots of cool stuff since then.

Ellie Robins at Melville House talks about a Guardian piece on Melville House‘s Not The Booker Prize party, in which Sam Jordison discusses “whether literary criticism [in broadsheet book reviews] adds anything to our appreciation of books, and whether the limited pools of reviewers and books reviewed skews the picture of what there is to read out there.” Read more »

What’s J Been Reading? [Chinita's Fair, 18 Nov 11]

Accidentally left Raymond Chandler‘s anthology, The Simple Art of Murder, at home, so I was not able to read further into the short story “Pickup On Noon Street.”  Where has J been reading Chandler?  On the DC Metro, to and from work.

So, hey! Remember yesterday when I pointed you to Juliette Wade‘s discussion of gender in fiction?  She specifically talks about Ursula Le Guin‘s The Left Hand Of Darkness.  What do you know, a rejection letter for The Left Hand Of Darkness is featured in Flavorwire‘s “Famous Authors’ Harshest Rejection Letters.”  If you’ve ever gotten a rejection letter, it’s a fun read!  Read more »

What Has J Been Reading? [Vespasian's Birthday, 17 Nov 11]

After my brief detour through Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp, I am back into Raymond Chandler‘s anthology, The Simple Art of Murder.  Specifically, the short story “Pickup On Noon Street.”  Lots of archaic racial stereotypes, so I am waiting to see if the story rolls into some redeeming qualities.

In science news, Jupiter’s moon Europa is believed to have shallow subsurface lakes that connect to the deeper moon-wide ocean.  Hard sci-fi writers … On your mark! Get set!

On the writing front: Read more »

What Is A Book?

Here’s a little chart for all of the oh-so-cooler-than-thou coolsters out there who like to show their anti-hip hipsterdom and appreciation for traditional literature by displaying their ignorance of its history.

So, you say you prefer “real” books to Kindle and Nook?  What people read on Kindle and Nook are real books.  You’re talking about codices — singular codex — which, early in the Christian Era, largely replaced the scroll format that had dominated book presentation for thousands of years.

Yes, we often use “book” as a synecdoche for “book in codex form.”  But, regardless of format, the book is the words, not the format through which the words are presented.  Here are some images to explain the concept: Read more »

What Has J Been Reading? [Birthday of the Federal Reserve and LSD, 16 Nov 11]

I finished Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp, and now I must say that I love it.  It’s the most brilliant piece of crap I have ever read, filled with absurdities and despair and flippant disregard for social norms.  Dedicated “to bad writing” it lives up to that threat, but it’s bad writing as obviously written by a writer who knows he’s writing badly.  The result is hilarious.

We now know what color moths were way back at the dawn of the Age of Mammals.  How? Scientists are some clever motor-jammers, that’s how.

At Melville House, a couple of good stories: Read more »

Odd Thought on Processed Meats

Braunschweiger … SPAM for classy people.

What Has J Been Reading? [America Recycles Day, 15 Nov 11]

Okay, you know what?  I’m really starting to like Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp.  Sure, it’s lazy and a bit too clever for its own good, simplistic and superficial, and full of potty humor so lame that it would make a 12-year-old roll his eyes.  But, a good deal of it is inspiredly moronic and/or moronically inspired.  It’s not what I would call “literature” but, as a parody of literature, it’s not half bad.  In some places, it is (if you’ll pardon the cliché) laugh-out-loud funny.

How did I miss the 160th anniversary of the publication of Moby-Dick yesterday?  Well, Melville House reminds me, and publishes a copy of the remarkable original contract for the book.  “Most striking … is how similar this is to a modern publishing contract, down to the wording in a lot of places.”

Also, there is an intriguing cast-bronze buckle dated to 600 CE, discovered buried on the Seward Peninsula.  Yeah, that’s way up in Alaska.  And, if 600 CE + Alaska + cast-bronze artifact doesn’t make you go “huh?!” then maybe you and I can’t be friends.  (Just kidding, of course we can.)

BEST READS OF THE DAY: A tie between an interview with author-songwriter John Wesley Harding (no, not the guy who “shot a man just for snoring too loud” … that was John Wesley Hardin) and a fantastic letter to the National Post about Philip Marchand’s review of Stephen King‘s 11/22/63.

A Serious Business Question About The Quentin Rowan Scandal

I hinted at this story a few days ago, with a teaser link.  Essentially, it was discovered that Assassin Of Secrets, the debut novel by Quentin Rowan, contained multiple sentences that were pilfered from other novels.

According to an excerpt from an emailed confession cum explanation, Rowan says: “Once the book was bought, I had to make major changes in quite a hurry, basically re-write the whole thing from scratch…”

Okay, okay. Stealing sentences from other people’s novels (dishonestly and without ironic intent) is a Big NoNo, but what I want to know is why a debut novel that was clearly not ready for publication was already bought?!  More importantly, why was Rowan allowed to “skip the line” in front of other debut authors who are repeatedly told to have their novel ready to go before even considering a query letter to an agent?

Odd Thought on Political Talking Points

To reframe the controversy surrounding possible links between injection mining and earthquakes, I propose the industry begin referring to fracking as “deep earth moisturizing.”