Gabe Durham's Blog, page 14

Two Pieces from FUN CAMP in the new issue of Corium

My first book, FUN CAMP, comes out from Mud Luscious Press in just half a year.

Here are a couple short chapters from the book in the new issue of Corium Magazine. Somber and thoughtful thanks to Lauren Becker for putting these out.

“I’ve begun to wonder if cool does not end at high school graduation as I’d once thought but in fact extends all the way into one’s early twenties.”

Interview with Jensen Beach at The Rumpus

Jensen Beach’s home in the sleepy town of Belchertown, Massachusetts was a real destination for me and my wife in the two overlapping years he and I were in grad school together. During meals we shared with Jensen, his wife, and their children, what impressed me on these visits was how well he integrated his recent venture into fatherhood with his previously established personas of Jensen The Dude and Jensen The Writer. He was present and attentive with his kids, but never helicoptered. He was not unsettled by sudden screaming. A kindness presided. Then the kids would go to bed, and Jensen and I would shit-talk other writers over beer in the kitchen.

Hot Knife

I wrote about hardened feelinlikeacriminal Fiona Apple over at Coldfront. The piece was even fact-checked by a surly fan. Thanks grumples! And for real thanks to Jackie Clark.

FINAL ISSUE OF DARK SKY MAGAZINE

GET SOME.

(Weird–I am no longer Editor of a magazine. I jumped from Keyhole straight into Dark Sky, so it’s been a little while. Kinda nice. Maybe I should try writing something myself.)

Nicholson Baker Radio

Excellent archive of conversations between Nicholson Baker and Michael Silverblatt:

1991 – U & I

1992 – VOX

1994 – The Fermata

1996 – The Size of Thoughts

1998 – The Everlasting Story of Nory

2001 – Double Fold

2009 – The Anthologist

Interesting to hear Baker’s voice change across 20 years of interviews. Baker’s collection is the most extensive, but the many others include Acker, DFW, Barth, and Stanley Crawford. Terrific archive to dip into as I make my way through his catalog.

“Bold Looks”

Liz and I were laughing about this the other day. The New York Times thinks watercolor is edgy:

Teenagers are still reading the classics. They just don’t want them to look so, well, classic.

That is the theory of publishers who are wrapping books like “Emma” and “Jane Eyre” in new covers: provocative, modern jackets in bold shades of scarlet and lime green that are explicitly aimed at teenagers raised on “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games.

Nice, yeah. But bold? Twilighty?

Terrible Things That Almost Happened

New video I made: Heroes saving people featuring looped commentary track.

Coen Brothers Movies From Least Favorite to Favorite

(Idea via Nerve.)

The Ladykillers

Intolerable Cruelty

The Hudsucker Proxy

Burn After Reading

The Man Who Wasn’t There

A Serious Man

Barton Fink

Blood Simple

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Miller’s Crossing

True Grit

Fargo

Raising Arizona

No Country for Old Men

The Big Lebowski

On Reading a Nondescript Erotica Near a Woman Reading Overt Erotica

I’ve just written my contribution to Shome Dasgupta’s ever-growing On Reading Series:

“Every library with a Banned Books shelf knows that reading is best when it feels like a subversive act. A few weeks ago, I bought and read Nicholson Baker’s The Fermata (the Vintage paperback with its innocuous, literal cover) while on a vacation with my wife and parents. It was privately funny to me to be reading such a raunchy book so secretly and yet so out in the open.” [Read on.]

“Make sure it would not cost $18.”

Talking MLP & FUN CAMP over at the newly launched LitBridge.