Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 27

Katherine Taylor's Friday Night Retro Round-up.

For those of you who missed Strawberry Saroyan's legendary Strawberry Is, which appeared a year ago in the Winter issue of Open City and was blog-checked way back then, you can read the whole thing here.

Georges Borchardt:

But, in general, good authors have always been fairly miserable. They are now. They were then. It's always been a somewhat alien existence. Most authors still need to have a profession, usually in academia but not always, to sustain themselves. Especially the better ones...

Today in Censorship.

From this morning's WQXR:  Zachary Woolfe seems to be talking about opera, but is actually talking about naked people.

The Katherine Taylor Thursday Round-up.

Howard Junker is irrepressible!  What is there not to adore about Howard Junker?  And what better time than right now to renew your subscription to ZYZZYVA, I ask you?

Kirkus kicks it.  That's what they get for simple-minded nastiness.
Today in college football:  angry, egomaniacal fat man replaces angry, egomaniacal fat man.
Today in Matthew Specktor: on the publication of the first book (actually, this is from several days ago).
Today in literary food porn.
This is old, but it's one of my...

The Katherine Taylor Thursday Round-up.

Howard Junker is irrepressible!  What is there not to adore about Howard Junker?  And what better time than right now to renew your subscription to ZYZZYVA, I ask you?

Kirkus kicks it.  That's what they get for simple-minded nastiness.
Today in college football:  angry, egomaniacal fat man replaces angry, egomaniacal fat man.
Today in Matthew Specktor: on the publication of the first book (actually, this is from several days ago).
Today in literary food porn.
This is old, but it's one of my...

Best of 2010.

Out with 2009 best-of lists!  In with 2010 best-of anticipation!
Yes, there will be John McPhee.  Thank heavens.

One of my favorite books of the past several years is Rachel Cusk's Arlington Park.  Her newest, The Bradshaw Variations, appears in April.

Next May, when you start to hear of Evgenia Citkowitz's gorgeous, ugly, funny, serious Ether, you will think, "Where have I heard of this book before?"  You will remember that the novella of the title begins like this: 

They met at a nice...

All the news.

I get most of my news from Zachary Woolfe and Mickey Kaus.  If they're not reporting it, I don't want to know about it.
So!  Very likely it will come as no surprise that the big news in the world today is the Met's misinterpretation of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffman:

According to Mr. Sher's program note, "for both men"—Hoffmann and Offenbach—"questions of identity, sexual obsession, and longing for acceptance all swirl within the dreamlike landscape of these fantastic stories." Wait a...

That Summertime Sound, by Matthew Specktor.

The best book you are not reading because it's been widely ignored is Matthew Specktor's That Summertime Sound.  How does a book this intimate and honest and real get overlooked?  It's depressing to think about.
The book's about obsession and miscues and friendship.  Also loyalty and betrayal and all the things that disappoint you when you're 20.  It's about a young man who spends a summer in Columbus, Ohio to stalk his favorite band.

I stood by the window.  At four o'clock, the girls across...

BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP ...

I briefly step on KT's toes to note that today marks an astonishing 29 years since John Lennon was murdered, a loss that's surprisingly raw all these years later.  One day I'll write about my memories of my 16-year-old self on that nightmarish day but not now.  For the moment, I'll settle for directing you to this video of Beautiful Boy, a song that has taken on added resonance to this new father.  Back to Katherine ...

The Shock of Every Writer's Life.

Over a year ago, in a conversation with my editor, I confessed that I'd been struggling -- really struggling -- with the second novel.  I speculated that this could have something to do with the publication of the first novel, and the new & unprecedented feeling of paralyzing terror at the thought of sitting down to write.  

The next day, a copy of the Paris Review Interviews (Volume 3) arrived at my door, with this Ted Hughes exchange bookmarked.  My editor really is a genius.

When asked...

A List Of Possibilities For Writers With Too Much Free Time.

1. Find a friend with a successful blog and tell him you'll take it over for two weeks, then get quiet and a little lazy and all but ignore the blog on your first day.

2.  Make lima bean soup.
3.  Call up friends and tell them if they want to come over for lima bean soup, they can.
4.  Listen to the Tiger Woods Voicemail Slow Jam Remix at least twice.  Think this remix is clutch-your-stomach-and-fall-down-laughing hilarious.  Spend the rest of the day feeling really bad about yourself for...