Search Results for: log book

THE BEAR ESCAPE

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Based on a true story we watched on the news a couple nights ago. (There’s also a plan out there to construct highway overpasses in such a way to make them safer for wildlife, and us.)

A full MP3 set of Van Morrison live at the Fillmore West, San Francisco, California, April 26, 1970. Unbelievably good.
The same blog posted Andrew Bird doing “Sovay” with My Morning Jacket.
Stanley Donwood’s linocut cover for Thom Yorke’s new solo album is fantastic. The original linocut is from a project called London Views. What is a linocut, you ask?
The audio for the Stuart Dybek reading and interview with Silverblatt is up at Lannan. Here’s a great quote about being a “regional writer.”
And here’s an article on how comics had a big presence at BEA. (Check out the Fantagraphics display!) This is really good news for comics, as is the addition of comics to the BEST AMERICAN SERIES, as is Kevin Huizenga’s new one, CURSES.

I was on the phone one day with my friend Brandon. Brandon’s a writer, been a serious one for a lot longer than I have, so whenever I get him in a conversation, I drop a little, “So what’re you working on?” question somewhere in the middle of things, a little bait, to see if maybe he’ll bite and spill the beans.

“Oh, I’m just reading, mostly.” The kind of answer that drives me nuts.

So I said, “Well, what are you reading?”

He told me he was picking out certain authors, and then reading everything that author had ever written. (I think at the time, he was tackling Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, and Ian McEwan.) I freaked out a little bit, and said, “Jesus, man, how disciplined of you! I can’t even finish a novel!”

So I hung up later, and got to thinking about his project. A few days earler, I’d read a line of advice from G.S.: “Find two or three writers that you’re really excited about. Follow their lineage back. Know everything about them. Immerse yourself in those writers.” This really clicked with me.

Since I started working in a library, I’ve been on book overload. I can get any book, anytime. No limits. Always a bad idea. So much to read. So little time. Really overwhelming. But this, this was a really great idea: Take it slow and steady. Saturate yourself with a writer’s work. Figure out who means the most to you right now, and then read who meant the most to them. No problem.

But how to begin? A list seemed too linear. What I needed was a map.

I’ve always been a nut about genealogy. When I was in undergrad, Brandon gave me a book of Carver stories. I fell in love with them. Then I found out our teacher had been taught by John Gardner, the same John Gardner who taught Ray Carver. I started building this goof-ball lineage in my mind…that I was somehow inheriting what had come before me.

A family tree!

So once in a while, when I’m feeling lost, feeling a little schizophrenic in my reading habits, I’ll draw a dorky map like the one above, who I’ve read, who I should read.

Where I am, where I should be going.

BRAND ME, PLEASE

Monday, May 15, 2006

“…with his third collection of stories, “In Persuasion Nation,” he’s peddling a line of signature goods. Expertly made, unmistakably his, they’ll be consumed with gusto by the loyal customers who enjoyed “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” and “Pastoralia.” It’s the kind of ironic twist he delights in: George Saunders, sworn enemy of commodification, is in danger of becoming a dependable brand name.”

* * *

Artists out there: there’s a lesson to be learned.

Name awareness. Identification. Purpose. Packaging. Marketing. Graphics. Image. Distribution. Quality assurance. Cumulative impressions. Remembrance. Relationship. Word of mouth. Lifelong customers.

If the customer has heard of us, we’ve done our job.

Is it okay to use the tools of the unholy for the holy? Or is the key to realize that there is no holy or unholy, only tools?

“Me and my wife are Buddhists,” Saunders has said, “and one of the things they teach is that it’s only your limited point of view that makes things holy or unholy.”

Brand-loyalty: isn’t it the dream of every artist?

* * *

UPDATE: Meg sent me this article later this morning, “Building A Brand With A Blog.”

200,000 RIDES A DAY

Thursday, May 11, 2006

These are caricatures I did last night during a poetry reading. Poetry folks are a different clan. More about that later…

Meg always saves me the Science Times section. I’m obsessed with it. It’s the only part of the newspaper I read regularly.

Today I read about a tribe in Columbia that walked out of the jungle after thousands of years, and declared it wanted to be part of civilization. They asked “whether the planes that fly overhead are moving on some sort of invisible road.” A thousand miles away, a boy is slowly turning into bone. Other people with his disease twist into living statues. He has a mother who protects him, but not all creatures are so lucky.

To my imagination, this stuff is golden. Magic. What is it about reading science that has this effect on me? That makes life seem so spectacular and mysterious?

All other news pales in comparison: the remix page for MLITBOG is finally up, there’s a nice long post about the novel Kurt Vonnegut didn’t write, and George Saunders recalls leaving Ayn Rand for Sam Beckett.

(DELIBERATE) PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Monday, May 8, 2006

Another 900-page academic book proves what most artists already know to be true: that “talent is highly overrated,” “practice makes perfect,” and “when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love.” The key, what some of us might not be so aware of, is “deliberate practice”: “setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.”
Later this month, Michael Silverblatt is going to interview Stuart Dybek. Listen to a previous interview on Bookworm.
Barry Yourgrau will be the guest blogger on Powell’s this week. Read a previous essay on writing his latest book.
Emmy The Great’s new single was produced by my old friend Jeremy. You can listen to it at MySpace.