“The Rich Boy was written in 1925, as Fitzgerald waited for The Great Gatsby to be published. With the explosion of modernism, the 1920s were a watershed for storytelling. Behind this decade were Austen, Dickens, and James; in front, Joyce and Borges. Yet far from showing Fitzgerald marooned on the 19th-century shore (where critics almost invariably place him), the 30 pages of The Rich Boy demonstrate a remarkable bridging of that watershed. The story consists of a linear narrative managed by a modern consciousness. It may owe more to Chekhov than Beckett, but post-Beckett it is possible to see a notion of reality that has already abandoned authority, becoming oblique, partial, esoteric. ‘The only way I can describe young Anson Hunter,‘ the narrator concludes his introduction, ‘is to approach him as a foreigner and cling stubbornly to my point of view. If I accept his for a moment I am lost.’ Why should this concern us? Because in an era of cultural plenitude like ours, stories should abound in something like the manner they did in Fitzgerald’s time. In a sense, they do. Stories are everywhere. The hourly headlines are stories, as are the multifarious narratives of postmodern pluralism. We have more leisure than ever to give to their telling and hearing. Yet it is not the storytelling itself that leaves an impression so much as the histrionic energy of its distribution. The publishing of fiction, its marketing, the shortlisting for prizes, the profiling, the reviewing, the processing: since we lack the time to read the several thousand novels published in Britain each year, the high level of these epiphenomena ought to make us feel that our fictional culture is alive and well. Does it? My answer is a qualified no. The histories of the novel and of storytelling ran together until the early 20th century; since the 1920s, that history has been one of formal drift, away from the novel as a social form that described how characters live in relation to others, a drift that gathered decisive momentum in the 1970s, as self-consciousness was joined to irony.”
– Julian Evans
Sky Dive
Dean Young
Dean Young
In school it had been important to learn
the names of battleships, diseases, museums,
kings, the internal scheme of the squid
which is called taxonomy but outside, in the fields,
it seemed most important to know the names
of sex organs: vulva, Mount Olympus,
anadromous pod and that was called soccer practice.
Beside me in Earth Science sat Debbie
until she was killed by a Volkswagen
so the rest of the year I did the experiments
alone. Say crack my fingers backwards, she whispered
while I tried to organize plastic seashells.
The earth had folded into itself many times.
Ann, Jill, Brenda, Elizabeth. Kinesis,
the golgi apparatus, the ellipsis. Give up,
go to bed, dream. Then to wake up twenty years later
after a party knowing you behaved perfectly
shamefully, the brain is threatened sea life,
astronomers predict discs of dust hold clues
to the birth of the universe and then to make tea
and telephone apologies. What was her name,
the one by the door? Expostulations of orange juice.
Purple clouds. Twice I jumped from an airplane
to forget a beautiful woman who was sleeping
with some guy instead of me who made guitars
from scratch. Handprints on an aquarium,
tissue paper. Irregular envelopes. To begin,
each player selected a game piece. She was
beautiful and drunk but not as drunk
as her dress which kept hailing cabs
even at the party. Beneath the clothing
is the skin and beneath the skin, viscera, bones
but beneath that there is just the skin
of the other side so clearly something
is unaccounted for. Green river,
lobelia, lightbulb shaped like a flame,
a chair shaped like a shoe. The last time
I landed, I forgot all I learned
throwing myself from a practice flight of stairs.
It drove me crazy, the way she smiled
at strangers and I could never be
a stranger. A thousand feet above the earth,
hanging from a handkerchief.
the names of battleships, diseases, museums,
kings, the internal scheme of the squid
which is called taxonomy but outside, in the fields,
it seemed most important to know the names
of sex organs: vulva, Mount Olympus,
anadromous pod and that was called soccer practice.
Beside me in Earth Science sat Debbie
until she was killed by a Volkswagen
so the rest of the year I did the experiments
alone. Say crack my fingers backwards, she whispered
while I tried to organize plastic seashells.
The earth had folded into itself many times.
Ann, Jill, Brenda, Elizabeth. Kinesis,
the golgi apparatus, the ellipsis. Give up,
go to bed, dream. Then to wake up twenty years later
after a party knowing you behaved perfectly
shamefully, the brain is threatened sea life,
astronomers predict discs of dust hold clues
to the birth of the universe and then to make tea
and telephone apologies. What was her name,
the one by the door? Expostulations of orange juice.
Purple clouds. Twice I jumped from an airplane
to forget a beautiful woman who was sleeping
with some guy instead of me who made guitars
from scratch. Handprints on an aquarium,
tissue paper. Irregular envelopes. To begin,
each player selected a game piece. She was
beautiful and drunk but not as drunk
as her dress which kept hailing cabs
even at the party. Beneath the clothing
is the skin and beneath the skin, viscera, bones
but beneath that there is just the skin
of the other side so clearly something
is unaccounted for. Green river,
lobelia, lightbulb shaped like a flame,
a chair shaped like a shoe. The last time
I landed, I forgot all I learned
throwing myself from a practice flight of stairs.
It drove me crazy, the way she smiled
at strangers and I could never be
a stranger. A thousand feet above the earth,
hanging from a handkerchief.
Top five famous books that sound dirty, but aren’t:
1. Ragged Dick
2. Of Human Bondage
3. Moby Dick
4. The Agony and the Ecstasy
5. Turn of the Screw
[Any others? – E]
Readers write in on the top five trains scenes in movies:
“Regarding the top five great train action scene movies, didn’t Buster Keaton do a train flick?”
Another:
“How can one forget ‘The Lady Vanishes?'”
Another:
“Should #2 on the list actually be Spiderman 2 (he asked geekily).”
Another:
“Burt Lancaster’s The Train, Sinatra’s Von Ryan’s Express, Borgnine and Marvin’s The Emperor of the North, and Jon Voight’s Runaway Train.”
Another:
“Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (for Eric Bogosian phoning it in and watching Steven Seagal getting fatter with each passing screen minute). Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. ‘Snakes. I hate snakes.’ Heh.”
Another:
“The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.”
Another:
“I think Buster Keaton’s The General could easily take the place of The Firm or Great Expectations on the Top Five List of Movies with Train Action Scenes. Although I’ve never seen Spiderman, I can’t imagine Toby Maguire/McGuire did many of the stunts without a green screen.”
Another:
“Runaway Train. Or is that more of a Train Movie with Action? One of Eric Roberts’ good films — probably the best if you don’t like The Coca Cola Kid (I’ll never forget him trying to win over the Aussies with his southern drawl saying ‘Daaaark and bubbly’).”
Another:
“Horrors, horrors. A top five list of films with train action scenes and no mention of Buster Keaton’s The General?! He did all his own stunts — even the one where he straddles two moving trains. Watch it. Better than anything since because, well, you’ll be a better person afterwards.”
Another:
“How can one overlook the following? Von Ryan’s Express (Frank Sinatra leads WWII POW escapees on a train), The Train (Burt Lancaster tries to stop Nazi train), Narrow Margin (Gene Hackman eludes Mafia hitmen a train), Runaway Train (Jon Voight on same), The Cassandra Crossing (all-star cast threatened by
plague on a train), From Russia with Love (Sean Connery loves & fights on a train), Murder on the Orient Express (Belgian detective tries to solve mystery of same).”
plague on a train), From Russia with Love (Sean Connery loves & fights on a train), Murder on the Orient Express (Belgian detective tries to solve mystery of same).”
Place your bets on the next Nobel Prize winner in Literature:
[I have an office pool going. I have $10 on Philip Roth. I slipped $20 in on Pamuk to place and Updike to show. – E]
E-Verser David Yezzi is offering a course at the 92nd Street Y this fall for those who want to know more about how poetry works:
On Prosody
This course explores the ways traditional meters and verse techniques may be used to make music in poetry. Students learn to internalize the age-old tools of poetic composition to liberate, strengthen and energize their writing in verse. Like the great jazz saxophonists, poets begin with the same instrument (language) and the same time signatures (meter), yet they manage to sound like themselves in poem after poem.
This course explores the ways traditional meters and verse techniques may be used to make music in poetry. Students learn to internalize the age-old tools of poetic composition to liberate, strengthen and energize their writing in verse. Like the great jazz saxophonists, poets begin with the same instrument (language) and the same time signatures (meter), yet they manage to sound like themselves in poem after poem.
David Yezzi is the author of The Hidden Model. He has taught at the West Chester University Poetry Conference and at Stanford University.
First Session: Tue, Oct 10, 2006, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Sessions: 8
Instructor: David Yezzi
Location: Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street Directions
Code: TP3LS03-01
Price: $350.00
First Session: Tue, Oct 10, 2006, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Sessions: 8
Instructor: David Yezzi
Location: Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street Directions
Code: TP3LS03-01
Price: $350.00
Sign up today!
A reader writes in on Christine Rosen’s quote from last week:
“‘ . . . that the musings of a Midwestern drug addict would reach millions of readers would have been preposterous.’ Thomas De Quincey (sp), anyone? William S. Burroughs? Harriette Wilson? Saint Augustine? Saint Paul?”
Unbelievable But Real Film Title of the Week:
Mummy Blushes, The (1982)
E-Verser Franz Wright will be reading in a few weeks:
Nov. 1, a reading for the undergraduate literary quarterly of the Harvard Advocate, at the Advocate offices, at 7:00PM, http://www.theharvardadvocate.com/about.html
Thurs. Nov. 2 at 4:15PM, Yale University, at the Divinity Bookstore, 409 Prospect St. Contact is Yale Institute for Sacred Music: www.yale.edu/ism.
An E-Verser writes in for your help:
“I have been an avid follower of E-Verse for a number of years. I am based in Ireland and, after way too long, am going to re-visit New York at the end of this month. I was wondering if your readers might have any suggestions for some tourist activities that are slightly off the regular tourist path? A top five list would be great.”
[Let’s help her out, folks. – E]
E-Verser Suzanne Wise will be teaching a class at Poets House:
Thursdays, Oct. 12-Nov. 16, 7-9:30pm
Verse Lab: Experiments in the Practice of Poetry
With Suzanne Wise
$240, Space is limited, Pre-registration required
Call 212-431-7920 or email stephen@poetshouse.org
Verse Lab: Experiments in the Practice of Poetry
With Suzanne Wise
$240, Space is limited, Pre-registration required
Call 212-431-7920 or email stephen@poetshouse.org
This is a workshop for poets who are looking to enrich and enliven their writing practice, creating new and expansive possibilities for the poem. We will explore diverse strategies, including collage, word games, ekphrastic experiments, and systematized destruction of the expected. The class is process-oriented and aims at enlarging poetic vocabularies and notions of form. We will read some writings by established poets in addition to discussing our own works-in-progress in a supportive atmosphere. Suzanne Wise is the author of the poetry collection The Kingdom of the Subjunctive. Her poems also appear in the new anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. She has taught poetry writing at Pratt Institute, Middlebury College, and the University of Michigan.
Invaluable Fact of the Week:
You breathe about 10 million times a year.
A reader writes in:
“May I draw your attention to the website www.lablit.com which you and the E-Verse readership might enjoy? The tagline is ‘the culture of science in fiction and fact’. I think it’s cool. As you might tell by the fact that there are three articles by me on the front page. Or one article and two rants.”
This week’s town you really have to visit:
Muck City, Alabama
An E-Verser tells us what she’s dressing up as this Halloween:
“My boyfriend is planning to be Ken Jennings from Jeopardy (the ‘why won’t he lose’ brainiac who finally lost, after winning millions!) I plan on being Tipi Henden from Hitchcock’s The Birds, post-seagull attack!”
[Any others? Is no one going to a Halloween party this year? – E]
Check out Photographer E-Verser Tim Brace’s site:
The highest-paid and most powerful women in the world:
Another E-Verser, well on her way, writes in to tell you about her latest business endeavor:
“I’ve left Corporate A(OL) to start a business called Arrivals, working with expats who are relocated to London. The purpose is to help them get a life more quickly so they’re happier, and to justify this to companies, more productive at work. My website (www.arrivalslimited.com) includes some invaluable facts — Queen Elizabeth invented the breed “dorgi” by crossing one of her corgis with a dachshund, you can buy Apple Jacks from www.americansoda.co.uk, and the exact centre of London is outside Charing Cross Station. Oh, and the fact that I’m open for business!”
E-Verse collective noun of the week:
A blessing of unicorns.
E-Verser Liz Brown announces her latest New York City reading series:
This fall I am happy to announce that I am coordinating a reading series at the educational Alliance, 197 East Broadway. The first evening will feature Caleb Crain, Melissa Plaut, and Brandon Stosuy. Please join us on Tuesday, October 17 at 7 pm in the Mazer Theater. It’s free. (F train to East Broadway, walk two blocks to Jefferson).
HERE IS NEW YORK: THEN AND NOW
Tuesday, October 17
7:00 pm
In his foreword to “Here is New York,” written in 1948, E.B. White asserted that “it is the reader’s, not the author’s, duty to bring New York down to date.” The Alliance has enlisted three very different writers with that task, beginning with Caleb Crain who chronicles the extravagances and vanities of New York’s upper class in the nineteenth century. Next, Brandon Stosuy delves into the downtown music scene of the 1970s and continues through to 2006, noting outerborough shifts along the way. Finally, Melissa Plaut, a blogging cab driver, keeps us “down to date” with her present-day account of life behind the wheel in New York City. CALEB CRAIN has written essays and criticism for The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. He is the author of American Sympathy: Men, Friendship, and Literature in the New Nation (Yale, 2001), and is at work on a history of the divorce of the nineteenth-century theatrical couple Edwin and Catharine Forrest. See http://steamthing.com.
MELISSA PLAUT was born in 1975 and grew up in the suburbs of New York City. After college, she held a series of office jobs until, at the age of 29, she began driving a yellow cab. A year later she started writing “New York Hack,” a blog about her experiences behind the wheel. Within a few months, the blog was receiving several thousand hits a day. She is currently working on a book based on “New York Hack” to be published in 2007 by Villard. See ttp://newyorkhack.blogspot.com/ BRANDON STOSUY, a staff writer and columnist at Pitchfork, contributes regularly to The Believer and The Village Voice and has written for Arthur, BlackBook, Bookforum, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, and Slate, among other publications. His Danzig-heavy meditation on Sue de Beer appears in her EMERGE monograph (Downtown Arts Projects, 2005) and an essay he co-authored with Lawrence Brose is collected in Enter at Your Own Risk: The Dangerous Art of Dennis Cooper (FDU Press, 2006). He’s currently curating The Believer’s 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD while finishing a discussion with Matthew Barney and essays on Wayne Koestenbaum and Gordon Lish, also for The Believer. Up Is Up, But So Is Down, his anthology of Downtown New York literature, will be published in October by NYU Press. See
http://www.amazon.com/but-So-Down-Literary-1974-1992/dp/0814740111/sr=8-1/qid=1158554986/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2161039-3765661?ie=UTF8&s=books
Writers at the Alliance, the Educational Alliance’s reading series, brings together established and emerging novelists, poets and essayists whose work, in both form and content, reflects the energy, diversity, and history of dissent which have always characterized the Lower East Side. For more details, visit http://www.killfee.net.
HERE IS NEW YORK: THEN AND NOW
Tuesday, October 17
7:00 pm
In his foreword to “Here is New York,” written in 1948, E.B. White asserted that “it is the reader’s, not the author’s, duty to bring New York down to date.” The Alliance has enlisted three very different writers with that task, beginning with Caleb Crain who chronicles the extravagances and vanities of New York’s upper class in the nineteenth century. Next, Brandon Stosuy delves into the downtown music scene of the 1970s and continues through to 2006, noting outerborough shifts along the way. Finally, Melissa Plaut, a blogging cab driver, keeps us “down to date” with her present-day account of life behind the wheel in New York City. CALEB CRAIN has written essays and criticism for The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. He is the author of American Sympathy: Men, Friendship, and Literature in the New Nation (Yale, 2001), and is at work on a history of the divorce of the nineteenth-century theatrical couple Edwin and Catharine Forrest. See http://steamthing.com.
MELISSA PLAUT was born in 1975 and grew up in the suburbs of New York City. After college, she held a series of office jobs until, at the age of 29, she began driving a yellow cab. A year later she started writing “New York Hack,” a blog about her experiences behind the wheel. Within a few months, the blog was receiving several thousand hits a day. She is currently working on a book based on “New York Hack” to be published in 2007 by Villard. See ttp://newyorkhack.blogspot.com/ BRANDON STOSUY, a staff writer and columnist at Pitchfork, contributes regularly to The Believer and The Village Voice and has written for Arthur, BlackBook, Bookforum, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, and Slate, among other publications. His Danzig-heavy meditation on Sue de Beer appears in her EMERGE monograph (Downtown Arts Projects, 2005) and an essay he co-authored with Lawrence Brose is collected in Enter at Your Own Risk: The Dangerous Art of Dennis Cooper (FDU Press, 2006). He’s currently curating The Believer’s 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD while finishing a discussion with Matthew Barney and essays on Wayne Koestenbaum and Gordon Lish, also for The Believer. Up Is Up, But So Is Down, his anthology of Downtown New York literature, will be published in October by NYU Press. See
http://www.amazon.com/but-So-Down-Literary-1974-1992/dp/0814740111/sr=8-1/qid=1158554986/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2161039-3765661?ie=UTF8&s=books
Writers at the Alliance, the Educational Alliance’s reading series, brings together established and emerging novelists, poets and essayists whose work, in both form and content, reflects the energy, diversity, and history of dissent which have always characterized the Lower East Side. For more details, visit http://www.killfee.net.
E-Verse feels the chill these past few days here in the Northeast. Here is a recipe for a sensible Hot Cider:
Ingredients:
* 1 tsp. whole allspice
* 16 whole cloves
* 4 sticks of cinnamon
* 1/3 cup brown sugar
* 1 gallon cider
* 16 whole cloves
* 4 sticks of cinnamon
* 1/3 cup brown sugar
* 1 gallon cider
Directions:
Combine cider and brown sugar in large saucepan. Put spices in cheesecloth or muslin (tie with string) and simmer in cider and brown sugar mixture. Alternately: Combine ingredients in large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes. Strain. Drink.
October is the federally designated month for a number of causes. Take a look:
Adopt-a-Shelter-Dog Month, AIDS Awareness Month, Apple Month, Auto Battery Safety Month, Blindness Awareness Month, American Academy of Ophthalmology, Book Month, Brain Injury Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Car Care Month, Caramel Month, Car Care Month, Child Health Month, Clergy Appreciation Month, Computer Learning Month, Cosmetology Month, Country Music Month, Crime Prevention Month, Dental Hygiene Month, Dessert Month, Dinosaur Month, Disability Awareness Month, Disability Employment Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Drum Month, Energy Awareness Month, Family Health Month, Family History Month, Family Sexuality Education Month, Fire Prevention Month, Flu & Pneumonia Month, German American Heritage Month, Glaucoma Awareness Month, Healthier Babies Month, Healthy Lung Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Adult Immunization Awareness Week, Kitchen & Bath Month, Learning Disability Awareness Month, Liver Awareness Month, Lupus Awareness Month, Magazine Month, Medical Librarians Months, Mental Illness Awareness Week, Pasta Month, Pastor Appreciation Month, American Pharmacy Month, Physical Therapy Month, Pickled Pepper Month, Pizza Month, Polish-American Heritage Month, Popcorn Poppin’ Month, Pregnancy & Infant Awareness, Pretzel Month, Rollerskating Month, Sarcastic Awareness Month, Seafood Month, SIDS Awareness Month (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Spina Bifida Awareness Month, Spinal Health Month, American Chiropractic Association, Stamp Collecting Month, American Philatelic Society Month, Medical Ultrasound Awareness Month, American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine Month, UNICEF Month, Vegetarian Month, Youth Against Tobacco Month
And here are some of the special weeks for the month:
Breastfeeding Week, Gerontological Nurses Week, Get Organized Week, Health Care Food Service Week, Mental Illness Awareness Week, Newspaper Week, Nuclear Medicine Week, Outplacement Week, Space Week, Cystic Fybrosis Awareness Week, Emergency Nurses Week, Fallen Firefighter Memorial Weekend, Pet Peeve Week, School Lunch Week, Teller Appreciation Week, Wildlife Week, Business Women’s, Infection Control Week, Reading Week, Wolf Awareness Week, Character Counts Week, Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, Magic Week, Peace, Friendship & Goodwill Week.
E-Verser Jack Foley will be reading in Seattle:
Monday, October 9
Richard Hugo House
1634 11th Ave.
Capitol Hill
Seattle, WA 98122
Open mic before show (sign up at 7 p.m.) 7:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Cabaret. FREE.
Richard Hugo House
1634 11th Ave.
Capitol Hill
Seattle, WA 98122
Open mic before show (sign up at 7 p.m.) 7:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Cabaret. FREE.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006 7:00 PM
SoulFood Poetry Night
SOUL FOOD BOOKS
15748 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052
SoulFood Poetry Night
SOUL FOOD BOOKS
15748 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052
E-Verse Radio is planning on wearing a gorilla costume . . .. on Halloween. It is a regular weekly column of literary, publishing, and arts information and opinion that has gone out since 1999. It is brought to you by ERNEST HILBERT and currently enjoys over 1,300 readers. If you wish to submit lists or other comments, please use the same capitalization, punctuation, and grammar you would for anything else intended for publication. Please send top five lists, bad movie titles, limericks, facts, comments, and new readers along whenever you like; simply click reply and I’ll get back to you.
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