Offering hard-nosed, common-sensical financial advice for the aspiring American writer. In this first installment, the Hustlenomicist replies to a college senior considering the big move to New York—after all, NYC is Mecca for writers, isn't it? Isn't it?!!
Read MoreNote to David Foster Wallace fans: do not blast AC/DC if you don't want to offend your idol.
Though if you're a dude, you may want to trade in the AC/DC for something that won't stir any violent tendencies.
If you need to relax, make like Cormac McCarthy and go into science copy-editing.
You may even end up like Woody Allen and be nomimated for a Nebula Award, quite an honor in science fiction.
But nothing is as sci-fi as the thought of computer-generated stories replacing real-life writers.
Or is the thought of writers replacing fashion designers even more scarier?
Whatever you end up doing, don't be afraid to go bankrupt. It'll probably result in a good idea for a novel.
But if you're not that extreme, you could just use Kickstarter as a publisher instead.
Who knows? You may even have the honor of having your junior high diaries archived in the Ransom Center one day.
I am the first to admit that I’m not the greatest representative of the science fiction and fantasy publisher that employs me. If you’d have scanned my bookshelves prior to 2007, you might have found one fantasy novel among the hundreds. (Its title probably would have included the words "Harry" and "Potter.") But Slate's recent post about David Foster Wallace's ten favorite books reminded me of how much I've changed.
Read MoreWhat if we could perfect the formula for tear-jerking, goosebump-inducing songs? That question has obsessed me ever since I read a Wall Street Journal article about Adele’s Grammy-minted ballad “Someone Like You.” Granted, it's a breakup song set to foreign-film piano, but it’s Adele’s “unexpected deviations” from the melody, effects known to music nerds as “...
Read MoreIs there anything more darkly satisfying than an impeccably written scathing review? The bright chorus of well-read, sharply intelligent people fighting? The singular, succulent voice of just one intelligent person mocking another?
Omnivore’s Hatchet Job of the Year Prize, which seeks to recognize “the writer of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months,” solicited my deepest appreciation and applause. And it got me wondering how else, besides the prize, the literary community could both celebrate and sex up the art of book reviewering.
Is there some way, now that the publishing world is a bit of a mess and in some ways we are now free to do what we want with it, that we could transplant book reviews into a fresher format? I would never hope to replace publications like the Times Literary Supplement or Harper’s; no, what I’m envisioning is more of a marketing platform from which such publications might allow book reviewers to become more visible.
My first ideas were unsurprisingly juvenile. They involved mud-wrestling and physical combat with comically sized props. Televised. Probably on cable. A show called Critical Takedown, where prominent literary critics could face off with best-selling authors, and snubbed writers could challenge the critics who ignored their work. Who gets the last word now, bitch? I don’t know how this could fail.
Then I thought the publishers themselves might throw critics a bone with an invention I like to call "The Sticker." What would happen is that every book that gets put on a shelf now has to bear a particular Sticker noting what a prominent critic has thought of it. Different reviewers could be identified by different colors: people would start identifying the yellow stickered books as loathed by Dale Peck (you know what they say about "all press"), bright pink means New York Magazine thinks it’s hot, etc. Stickers. We could even get that pixelly square thing to connect to full reviews on shoppers' smartphones. This idea sells itself and would never go horribly wrong.
The Omnivore’s doing a pretty stellar job of rounding up criticism, but we can do so much more. Bake sales? T-shirts with Kakutani caricatures screened on the chest? A calendar called "Authors and Kittens" and another "Go Fetch with Critics"? Maybe I am not so good at marketing. But I do think we're at a time in publishing when something great could happen. Imagine a search engine that would incorporate all lit-related web content and organize it, with the power and ease of Google, but exclusively books and uncomfortable social networking icons that intentionally degrade its users!
It could be so exciting!
image: bill37mccurdy.wordpress.com
“Robyn F. turned to face Brown and he punched her in the eye with his right hand. He then drove away in the vehicle and continued to punch her in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand. The assault caused Robyn F.’s mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle….After Robyn F. faked [a] call, Brown looked at her and stated You just did the stupidest thing ever! Now I’m really going to kill you! Brown resumed punching Robyn F. and she interlocked her fingers behind her head and brought her elbows forward to protect her face. She then bent over at the waist, placing her elbows and face near her lap in attempt to protect her face and head from the barrage of punches being levied upon her by Brown...Brown pulled Robyn F. close to him and bit her on her left ear...Brown bit her left ring and middle fingers.”
– Detective De Shon Andrews’s Affidavit from the LAPD’s Search Warrant following the February 8, 2009 assault of Rihanna (Robyn F.) by then-boyfriend Chris Brown
“Compassionate Justine is robbed by a beggar. Pious, she is raped by a monk. Honest, she is fleeced by a usurer…And so it goes with her throughout…to whomever abuses her, she brings good fortune, and the monsters who torment her become a minister, surgeon to His Majesty, a millionaire. Here’s a novel which bears every resemblance to those edifying works in which vice is seen punished every time, and virtue rewarded. Except that in Justine it’s the other way around; but this novel’s failing, strictly from the view-point of the novel…remains the same: the reader always knows how things are going to end.”
– Jean Paulhan reflects on Sade’s novel Justine (1791) in his 1946 essay The Marquis de Sade and His Accomplice (IV: The Surprises of Love)
“In essence, woman has to take it upon herself over and over again, regardless of circumstances, to bury this corpse that man becomes in his pure state…Thus woman takes this dead being into her own place…Shielding him from the dishonoring operation of unconscious desires and natural negativeness—preserving him from her desire, perhaps?—she places this kinsman back in the womb of the earth and thus reunites him with undying, elemental individuality.”
–Luce Irigaray, “The Eternal Irony of the Community,” an essay on Antigone and death in Feminist Interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel (emphasis in the original)
[R]: Don’t try to hide it / Imma make you my bitch / Cake cake cake cake / You wanna put your name on it / I know you wanna bite this / It’s so enticing / Nothing else like this
[CB]: Legggoooo / Girl I wanna fuck you right now / Been a long time / I’ve been missing your body
–Rihanna feat. Chris Brown, "Birthday Cake (Remix)," released two days ago
Let Me Recite What History Teaches (LMRWHT) is a weekly column that flashes the lavalamp, gaslight, candlelight, campfire, torch, sometimes even the starlight of the past on something that is happening now. The form of the column strives to recover what might be best about the “wide-eyed presentation of mere facts.” Each week you will find here some citational constellation, offered with astonishment and without comment, that can serve as an end in itself, dinner party fodder, or an occasion for further thought or writing. The title is taken from the last line of Stein’s poem “If I Told Him (A Completed Portrait of Picasso)."
Image: The Insider
For years now, film geeks have hyperventilated at the increasingly likely prospect of Ridley Scott making a new Blade Runner. Now, the addictive film blog Twitch has posted the rumor that Harrison Ford might be returning as well. The Guardian sprinted with it, claiming "Harrison Ford is lining up to make a surprise return to the role of Rick Deckard"—which isn't exactlythe case.
As a lifelong fan of Blade Runner and its neo-noir storyline, I wonder: why touch a classic? Or, if one dares revisit a film as ingrained in film-lovers' psyches as Blade Runner, what constitutes a "good" sequel (or—cringe—prequel)? The way I see it, there are five key factors:
Original director. Blade Runner isn't the only cult classic Scott's revisiting: Prometheus, framed as a prequel to Alien, hits screens this summer. Scott is the only director I trust with these films. Pro: Could anyonebut Peter Jackson have made three epic installments of The Lord of the Rings, plus forthcoming "prequel" The Hobbit? Con: You can't touch Richard Donner's quintessential buddy cop classic Lethal Weapon. But by the third episode, Donner added Joe Pesci and Mel Gibson shed his '80s mullet for increasingly bloody historical dramas. We're all too old for that shit.
Different director. Pro: Oren Peli achieved something singularly scary inParanormal Activity, a rare gem in the fulminating "found footage" franchise. Yet Paranormal Activity 3—set 18 years prior to the original and directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman—is even scarier. And Alfonso Cuarón's darker touch to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban sealed it as my favorite from the inflated series. (J.K. Rowling loved it too.) Con: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s atrocious 2011 prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing, beginning with flash-frozen dialogue and culminating in a shitshow of sucky CGI.
"Same world." Scott says Prometheus shares "strands of Alien's DNA, so to speak." Pro: Whether or not the xenomorphs appear, H.R. Giger's characteristic design most definitely will. Con: That drippy, green-grey palette mildewing the Wachowski Bros' sequels to The Matrix got foul fast.
Recurring characters. A sticky wicket for Blade Runner 2 (or Blade Runner Reloaded, as one Twitch commenter cheekily calls it) if Ford really does return. Pro: Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro needed scene-mugger Toshiro Mifune (Yojimbo's rough-housing ronin) to ramp up the ass-kicking quotient. Con:Tron: Legacy did itself no favors recasting Jeff Bridges (acting "like a weary cyber version of the Dude", burns Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman), let alone creepily de-aging his CGI clone.
Totally different characters. The "retrofitted" world of Blade Runner is so vibrant, do we even need a Deckard? Take the Final Destination franchise. Spreading three directors and nearly unique casts over five gory films didn't blunt its box-office success. Evidence: part five has the best Rotten Tomatoes average (61% fresh) and part four grossed the most money. Besides, I loathed the original (Devon Sawa…beurk!).
For now, the “Harrison Ford returning to Blade Runner” scoop remains speculative. But Scott's direction gives me confidence that it'll be dope, no matter who dons that trenchcoat.
Image: GeekTyrant
M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls" video, directed by Romain Gavras, is wildly, seductively, offensively, charmingly, incoherently citational. But what is it quoting? Last week M.I.A. answered some questions from Youtube commenters about shiny trousers, drag racing, and fabrication. How do you get a see-through car? You have it made in India. What do you say when they tell you it'll take five months to ship? "I could take a hundred Indians and make it from scratch."
Here are fifteen presumed sources for the video: some probable (Rick Ross), some possible (Sex and the City in Abu Dhabi), some unendurable (Gaddafi's virgin bodyguards).
"Bad Girls"
1. Saudi Arabia Crazy Motorway Drivers
2. Ghostride the Whip
3. Roll Yo Voges, Oakland Sideshows
4. Rebel Without a Cause
5. Indiana Jones Desert Race
6. Libya Oil Fields on Fire
7. Sex and the City Abu Dhabi
8. Rick Ross Live Fast Die Young
9. The Bangles Walk Like an Egyptian
10. Muammar Gaddafi Parade
11. Need for Madness Video Game
12. Busta Rhymes Arab Money
13. Jibbs Chain Hang Low
(14. Wham! Bad Boys [WISHFUL THINKING])
M.I.A. responds to Youtube commenters
Thanks to Michael Ralph and Yates McKee for recent conversations about Rick Ross, Busta Rhymes, and Libya.
Writing a diatribe on my doubts and fears of reading Haruki Murakami's1Q84 in English must've been cathartic, because I read the whole damn thing over the New Year's holiday. 925 pages in seven days. Estimating it took me over 14 months to read 1,650 pages of Japanese text, the time practically flew.
Overall, it's quite similar to Murakami's original, though I find the lack of humor magnified in English. I'm pinning this on the omniscient third-person POV, a departure from his well honed first-person narration. Not to say it reads blandly: both translators, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, have some fun. Like this naughty gem from Book 1 Chapter 22:
Tengo saw admiration in the eyes of several of his female students, and he realized that he was seducing these seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds through mathematics. His eloquence was a kind of intellectual foreplay. Mathematical functions stroked their backs, theorems sent warm breath into their ears. Since meeting Fuka-Eri, however, Tengo no longer felt sexual interest in such girls, nor did he have any urge to smell their pajamas.
Needless to say, I immediately referred to my own translation:
Tengo looked around the classroom, at the 17- and 18-year-old girls staring at him with awe and respect. He realized he could seduce them by channeling mathematics. His speech was a kind of intellectual foreplay. The functions were a stroke on the back, the theorems warm breath in their ears. But when he met Fukaeri, he lost all sexual interest in these girls. He didn't care to think how they smelled in pajamas.
Here's a gem for you language buffs: 知的な前戯 (“intellectual foreplay”). But I gotta give it to Rubin, hooking in action verbs (“functions stroked”, “theorems sent”) that I glossed over. And that last sentence...no comment.
Rubin and Gabriel split translation duties on Murakami's short-story collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. But, as Gabriel tells The Atlantic,1Q84 is their first collaborative effort on a single novel. Which might explain a few funny discrepancies.
Like the name of Tengo's favorite bar. Murakami's characters internalize their thoughts (even in third-person), and drink whilst thinking. When they're not pouring drams into bedside tumblers, they're out at some bar. In 1Q84, Tengo frequents this one joint near a Kinokuniya (paperbacks at the bar, something I'm emulating in 2012) no less than three times. Murakami calls it 「麦頭」(supplied with tiny furigana adjacent to identify its unique pronunciation), which I translated as “Wheat-Head”. If we're getting nitty-gritty, the first character means “wheat” and is used on beer labels, and the latter “head,” so it could signify the frothy foam atop a draft. Rubin calls it “Barleyhead.” Fine, I'll bite.
In Book Three (Gabriel's translation), this becomes “Mugiatama” (the phonetic translation of those characters), which Gabriel derives into “Ears of Wheat”! I checked the Japanese text and my translation and, yeah, same joint. Tengo's even quaffing the same draft (Carlsberg). Next time he visits, midway through Book Three, Gabriel leaves it as “Mugiatama.”
Finally, that whole “cat town” vs. “town of cats” drama that set me off againstreading 1Q84 in English. Rubin's translation flows predictably enough, like this exchange:
“Did you go to a town of cats,” Fuka-Eri asked Tengo, as if pressing him to reveal a truth.
“Me?!”
“You went to your town of cats. Then came back on a train.”
My own translation practically mirrored this:
"you went to cat town" she said to Tengo as if challenging him.
"I did??"
"you went to your cat town. then you took the train back home"
The original Japanese is 「咎めるように言った」; I called it “said as if challenging” and think Rubin's poetic nudge is a tad excessive. Yet several chapters later, Rubin translates:
“You'll be leaving tomorrow,” Fuka-Eri asked.
Tengo nodded. “Tomorrow morning I have to take the train and go to the cat town again.”
“You're going to the cat town,” Fuka-Eri asked without expression.
“You will be waiting here,” Tengo asked. Living with Fuka-Eri, he had become used to asking questions without question marks.
Imagine my surprise! I feel this reads so much more naturally, calling this far-flung location “cat town.” My translation:
“you're going tomorrow” Fukaeri inquired, looking at him.
Tengo nodded. “I'll take a train tomorrow morning. I have to go back to cat town once again.”
“you're gonna go to cat town” Fukaeri replied, expressionlessly.
“You'll wait here,” asked Tengo. Living with Fukaeri, he'd picked up the habit of leaving the question-marks off his questions.
And several dozen pages later, in Book Three, Gabriel dispenses with “town of cats” mentions altogether, utilizing only “cat town” in Tengo's thoughts and in a letter from Fuka-Eri to him. Best I can do for a response is 「当たり前」, which in slangified English might go “obvs.”
Photo: Mr. Fee
It hasn't been a good week for libraries, what with California considering stopping all library funding
and New York possibly doing the same...
And librarians are taking on big publishers who are pulling their e-books from libraries.
If only the publishers willing to pay millions for Amanda Knox's memoir would help the libraries out a little
Especially considering that small publishers are having just as much trouble as libraries
If you want to cheer up a librarian though, how about a severed head to show your loyalty?
Just don't play Adele, as her songs are scientifically proven to make you cry
And you don't want to cause too much trouble, lest you end up with your own police composite sketch.
A Black Balloon Publication ©