Best American 2010 — Neither Here Nor There™ — Kimchi news — Borges vs. England

I. The latest edition of The Best American Travel Writing features F.S. Avi Davis's "The Undead Travel," about vampires and tourism, which appeared in The Believer. I picked it up at the bookstore the other day and was reminded that one of the great things about it is how it channels a Sebaldian tone, in a way that's well suited to the topic...a tour de force!

II. Today the latest The Best American Nonrequired Reading landed in the mailbox, or rather on the doorstep, and it contains F.I. Rachel Aviv's great Harper's piece, "Like I Was Jesus."

III. I was thumbing through it, thinking vaguely Wow there's a lot of good stuff here, why can't I ever write something that would be a best nonrequired piece, hmmm, etc. etc. and then saw my name! In the back there are a few pages listing "Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2009," and it mentions my story "Untitled," from Gigantic's debut issue. File under: A nice surprise!

IV. Neither Here Nor There™: This is a rather long LAT article about the Korean kimchi shortage! It's all due to a cabbage shortage, the result of rainy weather. Not that funny excerpt that gets sort of funny the more you look at it:

In recent days, a black-market cabbage trade has sprouted. Police say many residents are hoarding the vegetables for resale. Four men were recently caught stealing more than 400 heads of Chinese cabbage.

V. I've been reading with considerable delight Fernando Sorrentino's Seven Conversations With Jorge Luis Borges (as, I see, has Levi). I love how you think, Well, I've pretty much used up all the Borges that I can easily acquire, and then—pow! Here's another Borges book you didn't know about! This bit made me laugh: "[I]t's strange that England—which I love so much—provokes so much hatred in the world but that nevertheless one argument that could be used is never used against England: that of having filled the world with stupid sports."

VI. F.S. Sam told me that his Lorriemoros joke was the first thing he thought of upon waking up that morning! Heyo!™

Don't forget about Borges!

"Borges is one of the authors whom I most read – and whom I probably like the least," Gabriel García Márquez once said. "I read Borges for his extraordinary ability at verbal artifice; he's a man who teaches you how to write ... to sharpen your instrument for saying things." —Guardian

Table-Talk of Parkus Grammaticus for January 26, 2009

I. "I think that the whole world of Kafka is to be found in a far more complex way in the stories of Henry James." —Borges interview, The Paris Review
(Via.)

II. L.G. Thos. sends this "keen observation by John Banville": "Who but Nabokov would invent a villain with an x in each of his names?"

Dzyd trivia: Name that villain!

III. Supplementary VN trivia from me: What VN book, turned into a film with Anna Karina, interestingly features a character named Dorianna Karenina?

IV. Most of the stories in Stephen King's Night Shift were originally published in Cavalier (?). Two (including "Children of the Corn") were published in Penthouse. One story appeared in Cosmopolitan, another in Maine (?), and another in Gallery (?).

Half a hexagon

I’ve just returned from a visit to my own local library, which is vast but far from universal. I discovered that the set of books by and about Borges would fill up roughly half a hexagon. Bloch’s little volume will add one more to those shelves. Sometimes the ceaseless proliferation of books makes me dizzy....
—Brian Hayes, "Books-a-Million," American Scientist

The richness of the connections, which implies a great deal of attention from the artist, rewards a similar intensity from you. There are connections within connections; connections that jump forward or back beyond a work’s immediate neighbors; and larger overriding themes that gather several works into a sustained sequence.
—Roberta Smith on Vik Muniz, NYT

Another candidate for Name of the Year — "Every human name"

"Dr O'Dor":

The research into the evolution of deep-sea octopuses was part of a programme called the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), explained Don O'Dor, CoML's co-senior scientist...

The species could all be traced back to a shallow-water octopus called Megaleledone setebos, which is only found in the Southern Ocean.

Dr O'Dor added that the BAS researcher's work also enabled her to identify how changes in the region's ocean played a pivotal role in the development of the new species, especially the emergence of a "thermohaline expressway". —BBC

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That great Lethem review of 2666!!! Begins with Philip K. Dick...has some HPL ("the puzzle of their devotion to a writer who declines their interest — declines, in fact, ever to appear — inches like a great Lovecraftian shadow over their lives")...and DFW, and Denis Johnson...and then:

Bolaño has been, because of his bookishness, compared to Jorge Luis Borges. But from the evidence of a prose always immediate, spare, rapturous and drifting, always cosmopolitan and enchanted, the Bolaño boom should be taken as immediate cause for a revival of the neglected master Julio Cortázar. (Cortázar’s name appears in “2666,” but then it may seem that every human name appears there and that Bolaño’s book is reading your mind as you read it.)

UPDATE: Dzyd Ben reviews 2666 for the L.A. Times.

Better headlines

What did Dzyds think of my headline "Exile on Maipu Street," for that link to the interview in which Borges's widow, Maria Kodama, reveals his fondness for the Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, et al.?

(a) Liked it
(b) Didn't like it
(c) Undecided

It left me a little unsatisfied. Dzyd David e-mailed me this idea: "Tlön, Uqbar, Ummagumma."

Excellent! How about "Piper at the Gates of Tlön"?

"Keith Richards, Author of the Quixote"?

Now the ideas are flowing...please send more...

Exile on Maipu Street

From a BBC interview with his widow, Maria Kodama:

[Maria Kodama:] [Borges liked] fun things such as The Beatles, the
Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd.

[BBC:] Pink Floyd?

[MK:] Yes, he loved it. So much so that his birthday anthem was not
"Happy Birthday To You" but "The Wall."

[BBC:] How did he discover it?

[MK:] I don't know. The movie of "The Wall" is awful and we watched it
infinite times. At some point I think he knew the dialogue by heart.
He liked that kind of music because he said it was a thing of enormous
force, yet vital.

[BBC:] And the Rolling Stones?

[MK:] He loved them, he also said they had an incredible strength. One
day we were at the Palace hotel in Madrid, waiting to go out for
dinner, and I see Mick Jagger coming. He kneels, grabs Borges' hand
and tells him: "Maestro, I admire you."

Borges, a little astonished, couldn't see him well, and says, 'And who
are you, sir?' and he answers "I am Mick Jagger." Borges says, 'Ah,
one of the Rolling Stones.' Mick Jagger almost faints.




*****
[Original Spanish]
Le gustaba eso y después cosas divertidas como los Beatles, los
Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd.

¿Pink Floyd?

Sí, le encantaba. Tal es así que el himno para su cumpleaños no era el
Happy birthday sino The Wall.

¿Cómo lo descubrió?

No sé. La película The Wall es terrible y la vimos infinidad de veces.
En un momento creo que sabía de memoria los diálogos. Le gustaba ese
tipo de música porque decía que era una cosa de enorme fuerza,
terrible pero vital.

¿Y los Rolling Stones?

Le encantaban, también decía que tenían una fuerza increíble. Un día
estábamos en el hotel Palace de Madrid, esperando a que vinieran a
buscarnos para cenar, y veo que viene Mick Jagger. Se arrodilla, le
agarra la mano a Borges y le dice: "Maestro, yo lo admiro".

Borges, un poco asombrado, no lo veía, dice: "¿Y usted quién es,
señor?". Y él responde: "Soy Mick Jagger". Borges dice: "Ah, uno de
los Rolling Stones". Mick Jagger casi se desmaya.

(Via Gustavo, Dzyd status unknown)

Dizzies News Service for September 6, 2008

1. Sarah Mangoozles talks to Leonard Lopate about The Two Kinds of Decay—very nice! I'm going to try to embed it right onto The Dizzies!


2. More audio: Dzyd Paul is on NPR today, talking about the spelling reform movement—jumping off his epic "Buzzkill" piece in the current Believer—you can read it all online, but you'll want to have a bound copy or two for further perusal!

3. Dzyd Dennis has a long profile of Michelle Williams in the NYT.

At a low point last year she signed up for night classes in bookbinding and calligraphy. “I was prouder of my little foldout book than of some movies that I’ve made,” she said.

4. And the Dennis-masterminded Moving Image Source featuring the return of the manly Mark Holcomb, plus pieces by Dzyds Rob and Benno (also manly in their way).

5. Dzyd Alex on pollster John Zogby in The Nation. And Wyatt Mason at the Harper's blog picks the latest Triple Canopy (of which Alex is a driving force) as your weekend read.

6. Levi Stahl on John Wyndham. Also: New additions to The Invisible Library, including more titles only found in the books of Nabokov, Powell, Frank Herbert, and more!

7. And in my continuing bid to become the Pierre Menard of the Internet, I have discovered (thanks to a reader) that my "Blogs That Only Lasted for One Post" feature has already been done! But I am not going to look at it...

The spirit of Menard

Having started an Invisible Library, a project begun in the proper Borgesian spirit, I thought I'd google the phrase...and found this! (Actually, I found a link to a defunct page, then Levi used the Wayback Machine, and then for some reason today I have found this resurrected/preserved version.)

What to do? Not only the concept but the name already exists!

In the spirit of Borges (more specifically Pierre Menard), we will proceed with the project—without looking at the earlier version!

(In the meantime: Lots of nice notices, and some great suggestions in the comments, which we will gradually integrate into the blog...And then what? Delete the comments? And set aside a "Contributors" post somewhere, maybe on this blog right here, or on Levi's?)

Whale of a time

From my 2003 Believer article on Charles Portis:

[In Dog of the South,] Dr. Symes’s mother, a missionary, periodically grills Midge on his knowledge of the Bible, a knowledge he repeatedly professes not to have. “Think about this,” she says, pointedly fixing his thoughts to the matter of last things. “All the little animals of your youth are long dead.” Her companion Melba promptly emends the truism: “Except for turtles.”

I wish I could find that line in Borges about being the last person alive to remember seeing something—something small, not a major cultural event but the way the sky was on a certain day in a certain part of the country. (Shades of "Funes the Memorious"; am I actually just misremembering that story?)



Borges and Portis came to mind when Dzyd Arlo sent me this link to the Times's NHL blog, in which Jon Baum reflects on the increasing rarity of hockey players associated with the now defunct Hartford Whalers (favorite team of this brilliant historian).

I like that the Whalers had a regionally relevant name, and one referring to an outdated trade; now Whalers are becoming as scarce as whalers; but perhaps all hockey players will be whalers soon enough.

[Cue: "Bob Marley and the Hartford Whalers."]

Syllabary

I love this juxtaposition of quotes over at the Ouroboric Erasing:

Borges, talking to the Paris Review, 1967:

You know, English is a beautiful language, but the older languages are even more beautiful: they had vowels. Vowels in modern English have lost their value, their color. My hope for English — for the English language — is America. Americans speak clearly. When I go to the movies now, I can’t see much, but in the American movies, I understand every word.

Lorrie Moore, mercilessly, in her short story “How to Become a Writer”:

Insist you are not very interested in any one subject at all, that you are interested in the music of language, that you are interested in — in — syllables, because they are the atoms of poetry, the cells of the mind, the breath of the soul. Begin to feel woozy. Stare into your plastic wine cup.

“Syllables?” you will hear someone ask, voice trailing off, as they glide slowly toward the reassuring white of the dip.

Can I add two from my personal stash?

Clem came from Buffalo and spoke in the neutral American accent that sends dictionary makers there. His pronunciation was clear and colorless.
—John Updike, "I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying"

Could mortal lip divine
The undeveloped Freight
Of a delivered syllable
'Twould crumble with the weight.
—Emily Dickinson

Partial magic in the garden

My latest Astral Weeks column, a look at Catherynne M. Valente's In the Cities of Coin and Spice and Tin House's "Fantastic Women" issue, is up at the L.A. Times. This one has all your, I mean my, faves: Borges, Keeler, Cloud Atlas, Samantha Hunt, and so on!

Table-talk of Parkus Grammaticus for February 7

I.

I'm reading tonight! From Personal Days! In Brooklyn!

II.

Maharishi dies—Hey Dullblog takes note—and James Wolcott takes note of our note!

III.

Habitus unearths a never-before-published Borges interview! Lots of goodies, including this bit:

Without a doubt Alonso Quijano is more complex now than when Cervantes imagined him, because Alonso Quijano has been enriched, we say, by [Miguel de] Unamuno. Without a doubt Hamlet is more complex now than when Shakespeare originated him; [Hamlet] has been enriched by Coleridge, by Bradley, by Goethe, by so many people. That is, the books live on posthumously. Each time that anyone reads them, the text changes, even if slightly, and the fact of being read with respect makes us see the riches in them ignored by the author.

Via Three Percent

IV.

Mike Hale's NYT review of Nickelodeon's Ni Hao, Kai-lan, is quietly hilarious:

Given the multifarious nature of the Chinese language, choices have to be made, and some Chinese-Americans might be disappointed to know that millions of children are about to be told to call red packets — the envelopes used for gifts of money at new year — ya sui qian rather than hong bao or ang pao.

V.

Great name: Floyd M. Boring, RIP.

VI.

Song of the day, from Moistworks: The Lucksmiths, "To Absent Votes"

Burn this

I wrote a rather startling comment on one of Levi's posts!

Dizzies Newsfeeds™ for September 5

New Believer is out!...Mediabistro has an article ("Scoring an Article at Your Dream Pub") about an article in this issue (Jason Boog's excellent "Skinning the Americans"), which I can't read, as it's behind a subscription wall; it possibly contains some quotes from me...who knows?!...Really cool piece on Borges by Gustavo Turner...Some Psychic activity...Alter-Ed has news of Nicholson Baker's upcoming book...(I guess you can't say he never does the same book twice—A Box of Matches and Room Temperature were perhaps variations on the strategy of The Mezzanine—but his range is impressive and I'm thinking about Perec these days and Baker might be one of the more Perecqian writers working today, in terms of appetite, range? This new book is "an 800-page opus"!...vs. the superslim Checkpoint, which really would work as a playlet)...("writers working today" = FormulaWatch™ would not be pleased!)...Want to inaugurate a new meme/contest via Jenny D but will do so next week...Sure, it's preaching to the converted, but this might be the hottest Atkinson blog post yet..."smirking Barbary ape"..."every limb-scattered intervention"..."teeters on the cliff-edge of nonsense"...This Poetry Foundation podcast is pretty great (listening to New Yorkers read aloud from those "Poetry in Motion" things on the subway)...

Dizzies Newsfeeds™ for Monday

Jonathan Coe's new novel will focus on mothers and daughters....The parts of Adolfo Bioy Casares's diaries focusing on his friend Borges have been published, and the TLS has an in-depth look (with several significant reservations)....(I like that the TLS will review things that aren't even in English)....We agree with Nick Owchar at Jacket Copy re the final chapter of the Potteriad: "It is exciting that a book can still stir the kind of frantic energy typical in Dumas’ day"....Over at Slate, Dizzyhead Hua on the rap "beef" in the YouTube era....Not sure we agree with this take on The Sopranos vs. The Novel....The Sopranos is surely not as good as Lost???....What say you, Dizzyheads?....Devin has a new "Pop" post up—including this controversial gem:

Fab Revelation #537
That virtually the whole of Oasis's worthy career sprang from a single tight and polished tap of pop musicality: "And Your Bird Can Sing." And that as well as Oasis have done what they've done over their 15-year career, the Beatles not only did it better but did it in two minutes.

And via Pinky's Paperhaus, this photo of Faulkner's legendary wall outline for A Fable:

Winding down...

A few more from us—


Best novel ever?



A horror story:



...and one more from Idalia...

The recognitions

Today's entries have a title in common. The first, "American Purgatorio," comes to us from Dizzyhead Laird...



...and the second, "Brief Encounter," is the handiwork of Dizzyhead Jessica:


More in a bit...stay tuned!

Labyrinths, bakeries, and more

1. William Gibson on Borges's Labyrinths (via Ed of the Ranting)—definitely my pick if I could only take one Borges book to a desert island.

Speaking of which, I figured out what I would say if I were allowed only one book, period, to take to a desert island. I would ask for a ukelele (or guitar) chord book, if I were also able to take a uke or guitar as well.

(Wait—why am I thinking I'm about to be marooned on a desert island?)

2. Dizzyhead Mollie's on a roll over at Restricted View: How one publisher mangled Middlemarch.

3. UPDATE: Time to check out the latest issue of Cinema Scope, featuring B. Kite on Rivette, Jessica Winter on Idiocracy . . . (Alas, these pieces aren't available online.)

* * *

4. Brit in Brooklyn was on the scene yesterday after the collapse of Ward Bakery. (Visit the site for more photos.)

* * *

5. Congrats to Dizzyhead Sarah—recipient of the 2007–8 Rome Prize!

6. Have you seen The Norman Rockwell Code?

7. Tomorrow there's a Believer Nighttime Event at the New School. It's part of the PEN World Voices—participants include Miranda July, Uzodinma Iweala, and John Hodgman. (Eric Bogosian is MCing.)

8. Any Humbert Wolfe fans out there?

9. This article about ravens is great!

Their skills when it comes to tricking and cheating, for example, have not been thoroughly explored. Ravens are cunning enough to set up mock hiding places in order to distract their thievish fellows from their real food stores. They're generally very inventive when it comes to tricking those who would snatch away their food. But how much truth is there to reports according to which ravens play dead next to carcasses in order to simulate a case of food poisoning?

(Via Arts & Letters Daily)

The Journalist

I've acquired some new journals over the last few weeks. Here's the rundown:

Jubilat Twelve contains facsimile reproductions of the typewritten "X-Lax" poems of Ronald Johnson (one-word poems, in which the word—knit—is manipulated typographically, a whimsical experiment in the limits of meaning; these were done in enigmatic parody of Robert Lax), an essay about the illustrations of Stevie Smith, a few stunning prose excerpts (called "Three Poems"!) by Dizzyhead Sarah, an excerpt from The Book of the Lover and the Beloved by (Borges and Frances Yates fave) Ramon Llull, and much more.

The Canary, #6, co-edited by my friend Nick, has work by Jalal Toufic, Eileen Myles, Ange Mlinko, and more; it's a must for any admirer of Stone Reader, because it features SR subject Dow Mossman's Joycean poetry—fascinating.

A Public Space, No. 3, has a nifty short essay by Dizzyhead Ben, "When Animals Conspire"; an extract from the new Lethem novel; an Anne Carson poem; a Peru portfolio; Nora Krug's five-page graphic feature (what's the right term? "comic-book story"? No.) "Never Give Up! Fukutsu: The Life of Hiro Onoda, Soldier," about a WWII combatant who lived for decades on an island in the Philippines, disbelieving that the war was over; and a terrific poem ("Lustron: America's Prefabricated Home") by Robyn Schiff, which inventively recycles the name (and certain other words: "future") in a manner appropriate to a mass-produced (yet roomy) product:

Lustron has a no-nonsense Westchester model house, which I like to think of as a Winchester Mansion* for a Western destiny already won. See how fast the past lips into the future; it's a matter of a few letters and a notary public to change your/spent cartridge and you're ready to aim again[...]

*I think Winchester Mansion must be a reference to the Winchester Mystery House, which was being built for decades but was never finished.

* * *

Speaking of poems: Check out Cathy Park Hong's "O Light, Red Light," a new sestina (from her upcoming book, which I'm excited about) up at McSweeney's. Look what she does with the sestina form, invigorating it with her meticulous mongrel tongue:

Girls! Girls! Girls! Batted molas eyelashes at boned molish chap,
But lika Greco Frieze, him stood in cold puddle o red light,
Spite One Girl! Curdling she finga, 'Come bwoy, Come, don' G'won.'
Toto sum Girls! curdled dim fingas attim but he maki no choice.
Only browsed 'till sighed 'nut'a day.' Went back, spillim seeds
onto hotel carpet, lone, wit only zuzzing cable, a suite nocturne.

Ai fife, he warbled, Ai la lune triste nocturne.
'E capered down to karaoke lounge to singsong, a sloshing chap,
At hotel, quaffing Singapore Slings wit pomegranate seeds.
Next day, 'E kem back to de Girls! ta fes de garnet light.
Fished outtim haisimap pinga, but brined bine choice
E sterilized, and de Girls! chortled 'G'won home, batty bwoy, g'won.'

* * *

Finally: Jane Dark on Baudrillard.