Super Bowl XLVI: a palindrome

From the Believer Logger:

Barry Duncan, master palindromist (profiled in our September 2011 issue), writes in:

“When I woke up on Monday morning, January 23, I learned that the New York Giants would oppose the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, giving the Patriots an opportunity to avenge their Super Bowl XLII loss.

Having grown up (in the Philadelphia area) rooting for an NFC team, and living now in AFC territory (in the Boston area), I felt uniquely qualified to write a balanced palindrome about the big game.

I tried to mention as many New York players as New England players, all the team owners, Madonna (who will appear at the half during the game and who also appears at the half in this palindrome), FOX Sports, and so on.

By Friday the 27th, the palindrome was 585 characters long; I thought my work was done. Then I heard on Sunday that Kelly Clarkson would be singing the national anthem. I decided to open the palindrome with the anthem and to make the ending a bit more dramatic. On the 30th, one week after I began work on it, this Super Bowl palindrome (699 characters long) was completed.”

Super Bowl XLVI

We now open: “O say” as is. So belt it now, hon, or if one more? Her! A rare KC. (I know.)

Had NE revenge, Bill, or no? W? On top? Same?

To get a flag: Ellis. Tip it! Won’t Osi? One to NY. (Name it now.) NE position: on one.

Curt et al? Aces all. It’s on! Turn a FOX on.

War day, eh? Din. Oh, sure. Now, as if it’s a Feb. 5 SB. Tame?!

Set. Is opposition we felt? It’s so. Two: NY v. NE.

(No risk, nor gain.)

I. Red. Now. Hut! I note: Ball up. No! Wide! Rah!

Seen Kraft (On), Mara (foot), ST (is a hero).

Tom era: W, an ad. Still? Or met Eli?

Madonna fan? Nod. Am I!

Let ‘em roll. It’s Dan (a Ware). Motor, eh?

As it’s too far? Am not far. Knee.

Shared? I won? Pull. A bet on it? Uh, wonderin’—

I a Gronk, sir. On! Envy?

Now toss. Title? Few. No, it is opposites: EM, a TB’s 5.

Be fast! If I saw one rush on, I’d—

Hey, a draw! (No XO, fan.) Rut? No, still a sec.

A late truce? No, no, no! It is open. Won? Tie? Many note, no? Is OT now.

Tip? It’s illegal. (Fate got ‘em.) A spot. Now on roll.

(I beg: Never end.)

Ah! Won! Kicker a rare hero. Men of iron (oh!) won title, boss. I say: as one. Pow! One W.

The Believer...

...has a Tumblr!

First post has some Spotify goodness, to listen to while reading Greil Marcus's column. Plus 31 Love Songs to accompany Rick Moody's modest proposal re the Magnetic Fields' masterpiece.

(I will occasionally tumble 4 ya.)

New Believer is out!

No, that's not some prototype for this month's cover—the whited-out parts are an extension of Jeannie Vanasco's essay, "Absent Things As If They Are Present," one of the last pieces that I edited. It's a lovely, learned piece, combining memoir with a smart take on the aesthetics of erasure—one of my pet interests, fittingly enough. (Discussed are Tom Phillips's A Humument and Jen Bervin's NETS, both of which I regularly taught to my Gallatin students, as well as Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes, the Jefferson Bible, Mary Ruefle's A Little White Shadow, and more.)

Also in this issue—a great Meghan Daum piece about her encounter with online venom, Daniel Handler/Greil Marcus/Nick Hornby/Jack Pendarvis columnic brilliance, Alec Michod talking to Fred Tomaselli, Amanda Stern chewing the fat with Laurie Anderson, Michael Schulman on Polari (postwar UK gay argot), Benjamin Weissman, Blake Butler, and (what a treat) Laird Hunt talking to the one and only Harry Mathews. And of course there's MORE...

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There's always more—but for me, no more, on the Believer front.

In the notes and apologies area of this issue is an amazing, tear-jerking (but funny) piece about...well...me.

It's been a wonderful I-can't-believe-it's-been-nine years. I'm too choked up to get into it right now....I'll save it for my memoirs...........oh, some exclamation points for my amazing brilliant co-editors and constant inspirations: Heidi! Vendela! Andrew!...Dave of course!.....Ross! Karolina!..Andi!...Sheila!...Meehan!...Matthew Derby of yore—Jason Polan—Brandon Stosuy!...Max!...and all the terrific writers and artists (I'm not even going to begin to list them)...(maybe I'll do a post some day and try to list all of them, the ones I've worked with.....)

The farewell asks, "What will we do without Ed Park?" Simple! Continue being the best magazine around!

(I'm blown away by this illo from the pen of Tony Millionaire.)

The Believer — the 2011 Art Issue

The new Believer is out—the art issue!

Check out Chinnie Ding's meditation on the meaning of the screensaver, and a conversation between James Franco and Carter. (There is a part with a Ouija board that made me laugh out loud.)

There are artists' paper airplanes inside...

Friday shorties

I.(Via F.S. Andrew B. Eisenman)

II. From a great annotated interview of HK director Tsui Hark, by Grady Hendrix, in Film Comment:

So besides the midnight previews, what else accounts for this extremely fast editing technique you use? I mean, your movies really do scream along.
We are very nervous people. That’s why our movies go faster than other movies. I think we were a little bit faster than normal people in those days because we felt like we had to tell a longer story in a shorter time.

(Via R. Emmet Sweeney)

III. At Tor, Saladin's Sundrarium looks at the RPG art of David A. Trampier (aka DAT, "Tramp"), whose illustrations include "arguably the most iconic piece of art in all of RPGdom." A great list (for those who remember his work), with a completely unexpected postscript. A must read!

(Via Grognardia, naturally)

The Diary of Parkus Grammaticus, Sept. 14, 2011

I. Last night I had the honor of presenting the Ambassador Book Award for American Studies to Rebecca Skloot, for her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot was sunable to attend, but it was a fun and interesting evening. Alan Brinkley won the nonfiction award for The Publisher, his biography of Henry Luce; Christian Wiman picked up the poetry prize for Every Riven Thing; Janet Malcolm received a lifetime achievement award; and—arriving at the last possible minute!—Deborah Eisenberg collected the Amby (we don't actually call them that) for fiction, for her Collected Stories. Tony Judt's widow, Jennifer Homans, gave an incredibly moving speech in accepting the posthumous award (for a "book of special distinction") given to The Memory Chalet.

English-Speaking Union 2011 Ambassador Book Award winners with committee members:

(l to r) Adam Kirsch, Ambassador Book Awards Committee Chair; Jennifer Homans accepting on behalf of Tony Judt, for The Memory Chalet(The Penguin Press); Molly Stern of Crown Publishing accepting on behalf of Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown); Alan Brinkley for The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century (Alfred A. Knopf); Deborah Eisenberg for Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (Picador); Committee member Benjamin Taylor; Lifetime Achievement Award winner Janet Malcolm; Committee members Ed Park and Maureen Howard.

II. Afterward I skedaddled downtown to KGB, where I managed to slip into a very crowded room—what a turnout! Thanks to Karolina and Max for running this baby, and to (F.S.) Rebecca Taylor, Justin Taylor (no relation), and Rozalia Jovanovic for reading. Sadly I missed most of Rebecca's reading, but the end was tantalizing: footage from one of the no-budget horror flicks that she starred in (as recounted in her Believer piece, "Virginia Mountain Scream Queen"). (Anyone shoot video of RT?) Justin read a wonderful little memoir about (among other things) once being Tao Lin's roommate. And Rozi read her music issue feature on the band Salem, to a smoke machine and a series of enigmatic/spooky/funny slides. So great to see so many people having fun.

Catchin' up — New Believer! — Free e-Stark — &c.

I haven't been blogging—I was in Taiwan and couldn't figure how to work Blogger. Did you miss me? [Tumbleweed.]

Now—to business!

I. The September Believer is out. On the site, you can read a Gregory Kornbluh's wonderful piece on master palindromist Barry Duncan, as well as Ross Simonini's (about whom, more later) interview with Jason Schwartzman. But you need to get the whole print issue in your hands. It's great. THERE IS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN DON DELILLO AND BRET EASTON ELLIS. (One of the many things I learned: DD excised 15 pages from a paperback reprint of Americana. I wonder which 15? I wonder why?)

Marc Katz has a mouth-watering essay on Huysmans' Against Nature (which has been lingering on my bookshelf for approximately 9 million years, and which I really now must read!), Nate Pedersen looks at the origins of the "butler did it" mystery trope, Meaghan Winter gets wiggy with Orthodox Jewish hairpieces...There's the usual Marcus/Pendarvis/Handler/Hornby columny goodness, filthy comics, reviews, and more...Verdict: Great issue!

II. The one book I read while away was Lawrence Douglas's upcoming novel The Vices, which is excellent—just my cup of tea. I was a huge fan of his debut novel, The Catastrophist (and profiled him for the PTSNBN, in one of my last articles there); this one shares some of the themes but seems to me even more successful—exhilarating, even.

Try the first page and see if you can stop. It's about a stalled novelist's friendship with the Bernhardesque Oliver Vice, and the prose is pure pleasure: elegant, comic, wise. There are subtle pleasures, too, that I'm not sure I can do justice to. For example, a brief passage in the first half of the book gently triggered a memory of a scene in Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight...and many many pages later, the narrator and his friend talk about that very novel, in such a way that the book itself becomes suggestively and satisfyingly unmoored.

I will have quotes for you soon.

III. Levi alerted me to two free e-books by Donald E. Westlake—God Save the Mark (which I reviewed for the PTSNBN; it's perfect light reading) and (as Richard Stark) The Score.

Byah byah byah byah

Today at 2 on WNYC (93.9 FM in NYC, also online), listen to Soundcheck's show on the cultural history of the bassoon. Among other guests will be Eileen Reynolds, who wrote a terrific piece about the so-called "farting bedpost" for the current (music) issue of The Believer. (Here's an excerpt.)

Believer 2011 Music Issue

...is out! Check out the cover (which looks even more amazing when you're holding it in your hands)! Check out Ross Simonini's great interview with Trey Anastasio of Phish! Ross also put together the excellent CD, of new classical music.

Brian Eno in conversation with David Mitchell! David Byrne talking to Tom Zé!

Frances Cha on K-pop fandom....Eileen Reynolds on the bassoon...Paul Collins on the short-lived craze for turntables in your car...Hua Hsu on telephone calls in pop songs...the Australian festival scene...Much more! Nick Hornby on North Korea (!)...Martha Wainwright! Daniel Handler on Kawabata! Jack Pendarvis...more...more...go...buy...listen...enjoy...it's great...Greil Marcus....more...

Disambiguations™ for June 2, 2011

Some catch-up...

I. Rachel Aviv made her amazing New Yorker (!) debut last week with "God Knows Where I Am," about a psychiatric patient who refused treatment, moved into the attic of an abandoned house, and subsisted on apples while keeping an extensive diary. Such a good piece. You need to subscribe to read it (though the abstract is oddly compelling).*

II. Hans Keilson, who found late-career American literary success last year (at the age of 101), has passed away. Damion Searls, who translated Keilson's Comedy in a Minor Key, wrote this appreciation/profile of him last year for The Believer, which you can read now in full online.

III. Speaking of The Believer—the June issue is out! Robert Ito kicks it off with a fascinating piece on Josiah Flynt Willard—hobo, writer, turncoat. Charity Vogel finds the godfather of the game show; Hillary Chute (!) interviews Joe Sacco, the war reporter/graphic narrativist; Brandon Stosuy listens to Destroyer's Kaputt; the usual columns including the new Daniel Handler one; and much more...

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*A side effect of reading Rachel's piece was wanting more, which meant reading some of the rest of the magazine. Great magazine! I liked the profile of Cory Arcangel—excellent. As if a quote from Ed Halter wasn't enough, it also mentions that he was a star lacrosse player at my alma mater. Then I started reading the açai berry piece and a review of a bio of Rabindranath Tagore. But then I had to leave the magazine (it was my sister's).

The Believer — 2011 Film Issue

It's the first of the month—that means it's time for a new Believer! This year's film issue comes with a DVD of the 1930 German film People on Sunday (you can read Jessica Winter's great liner notes here).

And the articles! F.S.* Rebecca Taylor's terrific memoir, "Virginia Mountain Scream Queen," details her life in B-movies (or should that be C-, or D-?)—here she is at 18, negotiating:

There's no up-front pay, he tells me, but there will be points on the back end.
I don't know what "points on the back end" means, but I decide this ist he way it must be in Independent Low-Budget Horror-Westerns. I ask him—has anyone else signed on? Anyone that I might know of?
He tells me Conrad Brooks has a cameo, a veteran of the Ed Wood movies, an actor from Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I've never heard of Conrad Brooks or Ed Wood or Plan 9 From Outer Space, but I'm ready to believe that this means something.

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David Cairns (of Shadowplay fame) looks at the varied career of William Cameron Menzies (who had a hand in everything from Gone With the Wind and King Kong to Invaders From Mars; Light Industry's Thomas Beard on the digest film; Peter Lunenfeld follows Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner to California; Michael Atkinson tracks the many moods of Robert Mitchum; Bess Lovejoy on grave goods; and more...

And the interviews! Debra Winger, David Wain, Walter Murch/David Thomson, Paul Verhoeven...plus Greil Marcus/Nick Hornby/Jack Pendarvis, the finalists of the Believer Book Awards (this year including poetry), and much more...Only $10! You already have it, maybe, if you subscribe!

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* = Former Student™

This just in—

New Believer is out! T Cooper—I can't describe it, but it's good! Alan Levinovitz on the perils of translating Lewis Carroll into Chinese! (A must-read.) Chris Bachelder ponders humor...Deb Olin Unferth interviewing Gary Francione...plus Lawrence Weschler, the Nick Hornby/Jack Pendarvis/Greil Marcus trifecta of columnly goodness, an interview with H.P. Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, and more!

Like Cormac McCarthy, But More Barbaric

It's Robert E. Howard's 105th birthday. Grognardia quotes H.P. Lovecraft's 1936 tribute to him:

No one could write more convincingly of violence and gore than he, and his battle passages reveal an instinctive aptitude for military tactics which would have brought him distinction in times of war. His real gifts were even higher than the readers of his published works would suspect, and had he lived, would have helped him to make his mark in serious literature with some folk epic of his beloved southwest.[...]That such an artist should perish while hundreds of insincere hacks continue to concoct spurious ghosts and vampires and space-ships and occult detectives is indeed a sorry piece of cosmic irony!

I like how that first part makes him sound like Cormac McCarthy.

Did I mention that I saw the Vincent D'Onofrio/Renée Zellweger take on Howard, The Whole Wide World? It Was Pretty Good.

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Sneak peek: Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi is interviewed in next month's Believer...

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.

January Believer!

The first Believer of 2011 (!!) is out! (I was at Book Culture yesterday and saw a stack of 'em!)

You must read Andy Selsberg's piece on conscientious clothing—is there a movement afoot? Does said nascent movement need a Michael Pollan (as Andy suggests)? Well, Andy Selsberg is the Michael Pollan of the conscientious clothing movement!

Reif Larsen (on the pleasures of the book, and the possibilities of the e-book) and Theo Schell-Lambert (on what those e-book ads really mean) will blow your mind!

Plus interviews with Guy Maddin, Pharoahe Monche, Bianca Casady, and others!

An excerpt from Deb Olin Unferth's upcoming memoir Revolution (which is great)...Justin Taylor on Bette Pesteky's Lish-edited 1981 collection, Stories Up to a Point...Columny goodness from Greil Marcus, Nick Hornby, and Jack Pendarvis...and much more!

Happy new year!

Audio daily double

I. I did a podcast with Curtis Fox, in conjunction with my recent Poetry Foundation piece on the value of minor literature.

I like the description:

Related Poets

Ed Park

John Ashbery

James Schuyler

II. The Believer offers an audio supplement to the late Barry Hannah's conversation with Wells Tower (in the October issue).

I am the clay

The latest Believer—the Art Issue—is out! The one and only (F.S.) Avi Davis is back, fresh from his appearance in the current Best American Travel Writing, with a terrific piece on the "dubious clay menagerie of Waldemar Julsrud." (Wha?! Just trust me, it's good.) Ed Lin—the man, the myth!—on the secret behind that Bodies exhibition! The International Necrological Society's "Declaration on the Notion of 'The Future.'" Interviews (John Baldessari, Clare Rojas)...Karolina Waclawiak on a dollhouse with tiny but original works by pretty much every British writer who was around in the ’20s that you can think of...C.S. Leigh on Jack Goldstein...David Humphrey on Carol Dunham...plus Lawrence Weschler, the Greil Marcus/Jack Pendarvis/Nick Hornby trifecta—and much more!

Rachel Aviv tops "20 Top Nonfiction Writers Under 40"!

Yes, I know, the list (at the New Haven Review) is in alphabetical order, but still! (Hold onto your hats—R.A. could qualify for the top 20 under thirty.) Here are some Avivian Blvr. pieces.

The list also includes Ta-Nehisi Coates, Josh Glenn who turned 42 yesterday, Lindy West (whom I started reading this year, hilarious), Brendan Koerner, and many authors who have written for The Believer, some of whom I've edited: Tom Bissell, Eula Biss, Chuck Bissterman I mean Chuck Klosterman, Joshua "Witz" Cohen, John D'Agata, Touré...Gideon Lewis-Kraus...I am probably missing some...

...the writer behind the list, NHR editor Mark Oppenheimer, is also a Believer contributor—check out his great piece on Evan Connell from 2005.

New Believer! October!

Ah yes...another first of the month, another issue of The Believer! That's how it is every month, except when it's the second month of a two-month extravaganza...but I'm getting ahead of myself! This month there's a great piece by Zach Baron on the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels, whose work continues without him...(read the whole thing here and see what I mean)...Wells Tower has an interview with the late great Barry Hannah...David K. O'Hara with a seasonal offering on "autumnal folk," focusing on a U.K. band from the ’70s called Heron that I'd never heard of before...David Fincher interviewed...Ashley Butler on the gas mask...Susan Straight journeys into Inland Empire, CA...Interesting reviews, including Rozalia Jovanovic on Lydia Davis's Madame Bovary translation and Stephen Burt on poet Aaron Kunin...the usual Pendarvis/Hornby/Marcus columnal goodness...wow...a poem by Alan Gilbert!...an interview with legal scholar Marianne Constable (full text here)...and—believe(r) it or not, much, much more!

New "Believer"

I. September Believer is out! The one and only Magic Molly (aka Molly Young) on the world of immersive retail; Geoff Dyer (!!? wow!) on Roland Barthes; Damion Searls, translator of Hans Keilson, the centenarian "genius" (F. Prose, NYTBR), on the writer's work—and how his interest in H.K. began with a mistake any bookstore wanderer can identify with ("Ingeborg Bachmann’s perfect autobiographical story ‘Youth in an Austrian Town’ mentions a movie, Romance in a Minor Key, and I misremembered the title, thinking that this book, Comedy in a Minor Key, by Hans Keilson, was it”); Jason Boog with a fascinating look at the epitome of N.Y. bohemia in the ’30s, the Raven Poetry Circle—check out this tantalizing bit:

D’Harcourt may have wooed her with his favorite topic, his unpublished novel entitled Ro Dran and the Year 90,000. He described it this way: “It is an erotic story of love. It is greater in its imaginative quality than The Arabian Nights. It is the most fantastic, most imaginative, most swiftly moving, most romantic story ever written.” D’Harcourt believed, like generations of frustrated writers both before and after his odd lifetime, that a novel could save him.

—plus your Hornby/Pendarvis/Marcus columns, reviews, a Weird Al Yankovic interview (!), some poems, a report from the Gulf, sandwiches in literature...and more...



II.

Speaking of Nick Hornby—why am I just learning about this collaboration with Ben Folds? (Which also includes Pomplamoose?!) And how great is it that N.H. is wearing a Believer T-shirt?? (A: Very!)