Gabe Durham's Blog, page 11

Quentin Tarantino Movies from Least Favorite to Favorite

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True Romance

Django Unchained

Jackie Brown

Kill Bill

Death Proof

Reservoir Dogs

Pulp Fiction

Inglourious Basterds

Flood Bloom

My friend Caroline Cabrera’s first book of poems is out with H_NGM_N.

Here’s a poem of hers that makes me wish Maurice Sendak wasn’t dead so he could illustrate it:

BIG ADVENTURE I | Caroline Cabrera

There were so many giants and tigers

and scary and exciting things before

that I am pretty tired now.

I almost don’t have the heart to tell you

my overalls fell off somewhere back there

and I’ve been running through the swamp

in my underclothes. Nothing turned out

as I had planned it in my Big Adventure Notebook

even though I dragged around a basket of provisions

in a little red wagon. Even though I hired

a really attentive watch dog our hiding place was pillaged

and stripped for spare parts and sold at a chop shop.

Someone stomped out all my luminarias—

I’m not a fool. I know they weren’t essential,

but I like pretty things on fire; I like cat-o-nine tails.

Unexpectedly, a spontaneous band

moved in on our picnic table

halfway through the egg salad sandwiches.

We had to share and now I’m half naked

without dinner plans. And yes, by ‘my overalls’

I meant ‘your overalls’ and I am sorry

and I am sticky. And you are more talented at espionage,

which, I’m not ashamed to say, makes me jealous,

and frankly, surprised. From now on

I will watch you closer, little bear, little beast.

Another VICTORY for a great press.

A Serious Contender for Grossest Sentence

Maybe you shouldn’t read this.

From the Same Harper’s as the Catan Oil Scenario, this time from the Findings section:

“Clostridium difficile sufferers may, as an alternative to bowel-excision surgery, drink warm water mixed with a healthy family member’s donated stool.”

Funny–I think there was an old Mr. Wizard about this very same topic.

Settlers of Catan: Oil Springs

An intersection of obsessions from last month’s Harper’s:

“If the fifth number token is removed from one of the hexes, flooding has overwhelmed Catan and all inhabitants are forced to abandon the island, thus ending the game. While no player truly wins, the player who currently holds the Champion of the Environment token is recognized by the international community for his/her efforts to mitigate climate change and is granted the most attractive land on a neighboring island to resettle.”

These rules + the game Pandemic + recent conversations with my friend, Tom, who recently became an amateur game designer, make me wonder: Shouldn’t more games have a way for everyone to lose? Or for multiple people to win? Or for ambiguous interpretations of what actually counts as winning?

Yes! Bring it. Competitive ambiguity.

You can buy the Catan Scenario here.

Billy (2 of 11)

- from FUN CAMP

Preorder it here as part of the Mud Luscious 2013 Subscription.

Muffingate: A Media Cycle

Muffingate is a short documentary I wrote/narrated/edited, about the time the Justice Department accused Hilton Worldwide of charging $16 for muffins at a conference, and the media ripples that ensued. All footage pulled from TV & web.

Meet Some Beatles

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This Elisa Gabbert post about whether to capitalize “the web” (you shouldn’t! nor should you capitalize “the internet”!) reminded me about this WSJ article about the ongoing Wikipedia argument concerning whether to capitalize “the” in “the Beatles.”

Most usage fights I can’t go in for, but this one seems to get at more than it pretends to.

The argument that “the Beatles” people make is that “the Beatles” is consistent with all of grammar. The argument “The Beatles” people make is that “The” is inextricable from the band’s name, and so the capitalization is untouchable.

My bias is: In cases where I see wiggle room, I always go lowercase.

Unnecessary capitalization of an article often seems to lend a weird undue power to the noun it precedes: “It’s true because I read it in The New York Times.” To generalize, I think people who insist on The Beatles are the same fans who think “Love Me Do” was beamed down to Lennon on golden tablets.

Because this stuff comes back to holiness. The ultimate use of undue caps is in Christian rhetoric. “Have you read The Bible?” And then in Bibles themselves, some of which trot out ALL CAPS when referring to “THE LORD.”

When I said this in Elisa’s post, she added, “Also red text. You KNOW it’s important if it’s in red!”

It is significant maybe that Jews’ method of showing deference is to not say the name of God, and that the American Christian tradition is to print it in the SIZE AND COLOR THAT BEST IMPLY ANGRY SHOUTING.

Subtly proving my point is this paragraph in the WSJ article: “Different publications have different capitalization rules. The Wall Street Journal uppercases the “the” in its own name but lowercases it for other publications. As for the musical group, it is “the” Beatles.” (bold mine)

The WSJ uses caps to hold itself above all others. It invokes slight grammatical exceptionalism when referring only to itself. so that it may be The God of Papers. Relatedly, I heard a rumor that the WSJ had a rib removed so it could–actually, forget it. Probably an urban legend.

Let me be clear, though: I am absolutely in favor of the kind of capitalization that implies We Are Together Inventing a Concept.

Some people might be tempted to call this “ironic capitalization,” but they’d be wrong. The humor inherent in Together Inventing caps comes not from irony’s saying/meaning inversion, but from the author’s audacity: “I am coining a term! Watch me get away with it!”

For example: Can we just talk for a minute about People Who Insist on Using the Word Healthful?

Because, seriously. I understand the distinction. Foods are healthy, people are healthful. But I just don’t think it’s catching on like you hoped.

21 Good TV Shows and Specials Currently Available on Netflix Instant

Breaking Bad

Parks and Recreation (S2 – current)

The Office (USA: S2 – Carrell’s departure)

The Office (UK)

Portlandia

South Park (S4 – current)

Archer

Bob’s Burgers

The Cosby Show (S1 & S2)

30 Rock

Arrested Development

Louie

Chapelle’s Show

Twin Peaks

The Kids in the Hall

Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments

Louis C.K.: Chewed Up

The Comedians of Comedy

Stella: Live In Boston

Patton Oswalt: No Reason to Complain

Norm MacDonald: Me Doing Stand-Up

My Favorite Julie Klausner / Jackie Clark Video

Is Lydia Millet one of the best living American novelists?

I think so, yeah.

And I wish I had a strong convincing critical essay in me about this subject. But the truth is, I’ve been reading a book a year from her for the last four years, the first two I read are already a little hazy (though enthusiastic!), and I only own one of them.

So I offer only this:

1. I know of no other fiction writer who has successfully engaged with our Ecological Doom Predicament so unpreachily.

2. She writes completely unswayed by the big lie that Economics is the truest, purest lens through which to view the world.

3. I don’t read biographies or watch biopics, and yet I seem to be an ideal audience for these episodic life stories she tells with such a specific lens that it feels completely natural that we should follow the same person so far forward in time.

4. So sharp. So funny when she wants to be.

It’s hard to gauge her popularity. She won a Guggenheim and a PEN-USA, almost won a Pulitzer, many of her books appear on major presses, but I don’t hear much about it when a new book of hers comes out, and she’s not on the radar of many of my friends. So let’s say this of her: Properly Acclaimed but Underread.

My tip for you: Start with either My Happy Life or How the Dead Dream and go from there.

I just finished her second novel, George Bush, Dark Prince of Love, which is easily the funniest of the four books of hers I’ve read so far. The sly point this book seems to make is that a citizen who models her own actions on the actions of a world leader would be a cunning, erratic sociopath. It’s as entertaining as it sounds.

The next of hers I’ll be tacking is Ghost Lights, the second in the trilogy began by How the Dead Dream.

Here’s a Lit Pub interview from last year.

Here’s her recent appearance on Brad Listi’s Other People podcast.