Mythologies

...speaking of The Believer—interviews editor Ross Simonini is one half of NewVillager, and this NewVideo (for their song "RichDoors") is not only a lot of fun—"an IntegratedEvent in ten parts depicting the NewVillagerMythology"—but also features, around the 1:15 mark, our outgoing mg. ed., Andrew Leland! (And just found this, HTMLGiant likes it, too!)(And here's more on the video, at IFC News.)



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Everyone knows about this already: the latest McSweeney's is a box (painted like a head) full of good stuff: a shard of Michael Chabon's abandoned, post–Mysteries of Pittsburgh novel, Fountain City, replete with annotations; a long and funny piece by (Blvr. columnist) Jack Pendarvis, "Jungle Geronimo in Gay Paree"; a "standard" issue of McSwy's; a screenplay; a regular play; a short illustrated story...also a fun surprise by Angela Petrella and her sister. Also the box is great for putting other stuff (pamphlets!) in...



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An antipodean bookseller talks about McSweeney's/Blvr./etc.

Notes

1. There's an octopus that will stuff six of its tentacles into a hole in the ground and extend the two remaining tentacles as far as they will go, giving the illusion that it's a poisonous banded sea snake.

2. I never read Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, but I clipped a review from the TLS. I uncovered this review last night, while looking for something else. I realized I never read the review, either. (This was about three years ago.) Should I just throw it out? Or is it telling me something?

3. Andrew Leland, member of a Dance to the Music of Time book club (!), has some thoughts on Powell and Powellians:

Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his epic, nay Pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his heart.

“But,” our narrator adds, “surely the pointed wit was just what did survive?” And who now reads Powell? A weirdly vocal and large group, it seems. The pleasure of Powell is in his humor, and his humor is entirely social. “Wit was just the quality he brought to bear with such remarkable effect.”

4. Paul Collins on Barbara Follett, in Lapham's Quarterly. This is how you write a lede!:

In a New Hampshire apartment during the winter of 1923, this typewritten notice was fastened squarely against a closed door:

NOBODY MAY COME INTO THIS ROOM IF THE DOOR IS SHUT TIGHT (IF IT IS SHUT NOT QUITE LATCHED IT IS ALL RIGHT) WITHOUT KNOCKING. THE PERSON IN THIS ROOM IF HE AGREES THAT ONE SHALL COME IN WILL SAY “COME IN,” OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND IF HE DOES NOT AGREE TO IT HE WILL SAY “NOT YET, PLEASE,” OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. THE DOOR MAY BE SHUT IF NOBODY IS IN THE ROOM BUT IF A PERSON WANTS TO COME IN, KNOCKS AND HEARS NO ANSWER THAT MEANS THERE IS NO ONE IN THE ROOM AND HE MUST NOT GO IN.

REASON. IF THE DOOR IS SHUT TIGHT AND A PERSON IS IN THE ROOM THE SHUT DOOR MEANS THAT THE PERSON IN THE ROOM WISHES TO BE LEFT ALONE.

5. Richard Nash talks about William Poundstone's Priceless in his "Year of Reading" roundup at The Millions.

6. Two more pieces to write...

The Drop Cap of Yonder

Behind the scenes at The Believer.

For a future edition of the Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments

You can't win at Facebook.

"Uncle Andy's Giggle Shack"

Andrew Leland—impressionistic Web 1.0 vision-quester.

Constant comment

Steve Elliott's cup o' plenty known as The Rumpus puts the spotlight on...Dizzies commenter ANDREW.

(Is this an Ouroboros yet?)

End of the tail

In San Francisco, Aurobora Press is closing its doors. Here's Dzyd Andrew's photographic record of its existence.

Aurobora = "Ouroboros" (an alchemical symbol, among other things) lexically altered to produce the alchemical goal of gold?

Your most humble and obedient servant: Table-Talk for December 26, 2008

I. Dzyd Brian revisits his teenage sonneteer self, and more:

An hour or two ago I dreamt that I and some coworkers were missing our top rows of teeth. On the bare gums in the tops of our mouths, we wore "reversible" dentures.

II. John Lennon's "paranoid close readings of some lyrics from Ram." (Via.)


III. Dzyd Andrew's Flaubert's Parrot :

I prefer to think that this newspaper was clipped in Manhattan, where the paperback was purchased by a wonderful bespectacled clean-shaven man. My dad lived in Manhattan at the time, and I lived with my mom across the Tappan Zee Bridge in Rockland County. I visited dad in 80s Bachelor Manhattan every other weekend, sometimes every weekend. I might’ve touched this newspaper when I was four years old!

(Also see: "an ouroboros of one's own").

IV. An interview with Jenny D. at the Columbia Political Review:

When I sign a letter “Your most obedient and humble servant,” is that a falsification of my relationship with the person to whom I have addressed the letter? What about if I ask my servant to say that I am “not at home” to visitors—is that safely perceived as a conventional “white lie,” or do I actually degrade my own truthfulness by practicing these forms of supposedly innocent deception?

Andrew Leland: The next Howard Hampton?

From Goodjobbb:

That’s why I use AmandaPeetMoss

roman a Wycleff Jean

Dizzies Press Release: Will Sheff interviewed (San Francisco Dizzies)

Blvr. mg. ed. and secretive power-blogger ANDREW LELAND will be interviewing Okkervil River singer-songwriter WILL SHEFF at the City Arts & Lectures series on Weds., Dec. 17...Here's the official notice:

As the front man for the Austin-based band Okkervil River, Will Sheff explores rock music's right to revel in human experience, clichés and all. After growing up in New Hampshire, Sheff left New England to study English at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Okkervil River formed in 1998, and has produced five albums and five EPs, from their very first - a live EP called Stars Too Small to Use - to their breakthrough album Black Sheep Boy, released in 2005. In an interview for The Believer magazine, Sheff states, "A lot of the time, my guiding principle is to try and do all the things I couldn't possibly get away with, and do them well." Okkervil River's upcoming release, The Stand Ins (September 2008), completes a planned double-album with their 2007 record, The Stage Names. Critics have frequently labeled Okkervil River a "literary" band, but Sheff and his bandmates also remain faithful to rock's hard-swinging roots. Will Sheff cites influences from the Incredible String Band, Sam Cooke and James Brown to Joan Didion and Russian literature. In live performance, Sheff allies himself firmly with performers like Otis Redding or Ian Curtis, delivering songs with visceral, no-holds-barred physical dedication. In addition to his lyrical talents, Sheff plays banjo, guitar, piano, and harmonica, and is also a founding member of the band Shearwater.

And here are some recent pictures of Mr. Sheff.

And an old but good Blvr interview!

reflections on a gift of a monotype ouroboros

Ouroboros hunters/Blvr. editors Ross and Andrew spotted a fine specimen on the streets of San Francisco:



It's the office of Aurobora Press!



Like many of our young people today, Andrew is inspired to become an Ouroboros:



(According to the website, "Aurobora Press is an invitational fine art press located in San Francisco dedicated to the monotype medium.")

Here's one more, for good measure:

Dizzies Newsfeeds for November 7

There's a blog called Vertigo—and it's about Sebald! (Via Selfdivider)...Dizzyhead Hua is on Wikipedia...How about this Barthelme review done in the style of D.B.?...Dizzyhead Andrew is mainstream America...Tomorrow: Come to "Make It News," a symposium at Columbia's J-School as poets, journalists, and critics talk about poetry, journalism, and criticism! Update: For a preview of topics TBD, check out Dizzyhead Jessica's feature, up at the Poetry Foundation site...A 10-year-old speaks 11 languages and resembles Robert Donat (via Paperpools)...Meanwhile a worker putting floral patterns on NYC taxi hoods, with the great name Hamed Fall (like a jumbled hall of fame), is "a Senegalese-born former taxi driver who speaks French, a bit of Arabic, Wolof and Fulani"...I myself speak a little bit of English...rimshot, please...We just bought milk but the milk is almost gone, at least I can read Levi on milk. Here he quotes from Peter Ackroyd's London: A Biography:

It was certainly true that, as Addison wrote in 1711, "People know the Wares [tradesmen] deal in rather by their Tunes than by their Words." The words were often indistinct or indistinguishable: the mender of old chairs was recognised by his low and melancholy note, while the retailer of broken glass specialised in a sort of plaintive shriek quite appropriate to his goods. . . . There was also in the passage of years, or centuries, the steady clipping or abbreviation of jargon. "Will you buy any milk today, mistress" became "Milk maids below," then "Milk below," then "Milk-o" and, finally, "Mieu" or "Mee-o." . . . Pierce Egan, author of Life in London," recalled "one man from whom I could never make out more than happy happy happy now."