Treme meme

Prediction for a Slate article for six months from now: "Why Treme Is Better Than The Wire."
—Steve Hely

Inversions

John Deming's piece "Salinger's Poets" includes a bit from his novella The Inverted Forest, about a fictional poet named Raymond Ford:

“I have such nice friends,” she told him enthusiastically. “They all know your poetry. Some even live on it.”

“Corinne, I don’t mix too well–”

Corinne leaned forward joyfully, remembering something.

“That’s what Miss Aigletinger once yelled about you into my father’s thing. Do you remember Miss Aigletinger?”

Ford nodded unnostalgically. “What would I have to do if I met them?” he asked.

(from Travis)

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Steve Hely: "It's a sad day for readers. Every adolescent goes through a Louis Auchincloss phase."

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From the Parkives: J.D. Salinger, Author of...Lolita?

Disambiguations™ for September 24, 2009

I. I've updated ed-park.com, for the first time in months! A few readings sprinkled throughout the fall...

II. The NYT on The New Literary History of America—our own Hua was on the editorial board. Hua explains:

Each essay is loosely fixed to a moment of "making"--the fashioning of a new idea, the publication of a book, a turning point-of-a-speech, a conversation that would outline a movement, the birth of cool, or simply a fleeting spark of a thought that would continue on as someone else's design for life. As such, our sense of the literary was canonical yet, at times, weird and wide-ranging--the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous and the publication of Linda Lovelace's autobiography seem to be the two non-"literary" entries critics have gravitated toward.

Other Disamiguation-fave contributors include Douglas Wolk, Howard Hampton, Joshua Clover, and more...

III. Dennis talks to Lars Von Trier via satellite.

IV. Andrew Gelman on Steve Hely's How I Became a Famous Novelist (a book I keep thinking about).

V. Jenny remembers Barbara Johnson and reproduces her syllabus from 1992. (Also follow for a link to Lindsay Waters' remembrance.)

VI. The Significant Objects project is still going strong—here's Stephen Elliott ("The Adderall Diaries" = play on "The Basketball Diaries"?) on some Hawaiian utensils:

I bought these Hawaiian utensils, a wooden spoon and fork, while living in Alaska in the mid-eighties with my first wife. We were living outside the Eskimo village Wales on the western edge of the state, three miles outside of Tin City Air Force Station. The Air Force station was the location of a long-range radar for air surveillance. It was originally built in the 1950s but Reagan gave it a serious upgrade during his successful bid to destabilize the Russians. From the top of a snowdrift you could see boats pulling into ports larger than many football stadiums, carrying steel arms more than a mile in length.

The Invisible Library, Part XVIII

Not only is Steve Hely's How I Became a Famous Novelist so funny that I kept posting quotes on my Facebook page until they revoked my newsfeed-rights—but it's full of Invisible Library candidates!

For a deeply satisfying sample, download the ersatz NYT Bestseller List from...the NYT Paper Cuts blog.

And yes, that's me in the comments section, telling people to check out Steve's Believer piece, "Short Takes on Books That Don't Exist"—made even more geniusy by the faux book covers conjured by McMülls and a crack team of designers:


THUD!

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UPDATE: The Second Pass and the Guardian pick up on the Invisible Library exhibit/blog/meme/thing.