No children

‎"I have no family to take care of. I have no child to inherit my properties. You, the people, are my only family, and to make you happy is the reason I do politics.” —Park Geun-hye


 "I have no children, but all young Koreans are my sons and daughters." —Syngman Rhee
Gothamist House: Mountain Goats, "No Children" from Gothamist on Vimeo.

My Year in Writing

On the occasion of the appearance of my "A Year in Reading" post at The Millions, I'm trying to remember the other stuff I wrote or had published this year...

0. [I just remembered this, 1/1/13] "Chinese Whispers: On Writing/Not Writing Asian American Literature," a talk I originally wrote for the Post45 conference back in 2011 appeared in the Spring 2012 ("Generations") issue of the Asian American Literary Review. The subtitle was unwittingly borrowed from/paraphrased the name of the panel I was to have been on (I didn't make it there)—organized by Min Hyoung Song, whose forthcoming book is The Children of 1965: On Writing, and Not Writing, as an Asian American (Duke).
1. My short-short story "Cow Vase" was included in Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker's anthology Significant Objects. (Buy here).

2. "Like Cormac McCarthy, But Funny," a long appreciation that was in the debut issue of The Believer (2003) as well as the Believer anthology Read Hard, was included in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, edited by Jay Jennings. There aren't many books by Portis out there; this is an invaluable look at his journalism and magazine pieces (humor, memoir, fiction). It also contains a play. A must for Portisheads! (Buy here.)

3. My appreciation of Harry Mathews's first three novels (particularly The Conversions), which turned into a mini-memoir of that time in my life when I spent hours at a store called Book Ark, appeared as part of the Quarterly Conversation's Harry Mathews symposium, alongside terrific pieces by Dan Visel and others.

4. My short story "Two Laptops" appeared in Columbia Magazine.

4. Then (this is sort of chronological) came my essay, "It's Alive!," on Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, for the Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD release. (Buy here.)

5. Out on the newsstands (but not online) is my essay-review for Bookforum on P.G. Wodehouse, pegged to the publication of his selected letters. It's also about what you should read while waiting for your first child to be born.

6. I don't think it's out yet—I haven't seen a copy—but a story of mine called "The Virtues" is in Unstuck #2.

That's it! I think. Working on one more piece that is overdue, for the New York Review edition of Russell Hoban's Turtle Diary.

Thank you to Sonya Chung, Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, Jay Jennings, Scott Esposito, Liz Helfgott, my old friend Michael Miller, Rebecca Shapiro, Matt Williamson, and Sara Kramer!

Oreoboros

I have a backlog of ourobori to get to--thanks to all who have been sending them my way! Here's one from Scott: "The dreaded Oreobouros: Oreo cookies filled with Cookies n' Cream ice cream."

You could write a novel tonight