“In recent years, memoir has consistently been among the bestselling genres in American publishing. Readers devour tales of drug abuse, incest, depression, and sundry other personal challenges — often too credulously, as the recent rehab fabulations of author James Frey attest. Many of these books tell stories of human weakness and the redemption achieved by the author in overcoming them. In so doing they tap into our longing for narratives of the extraordinary in ordinary life, and for stories that suggest that individual lives do, indeed, matter. This is a significant change from previous eras, which preferred narratives of extraordinary lives; memoirs were then something public figures published toward the end of their lives, and the idea that the musings of a Midwestern drug addict would reach millions of readers would have been preposterous.”
– Christine Rosen
About Face
Alice Fulton
Because life’s too short to blush,
I keep my blood tucked in.
I won’t be mortified
by what I drive or the flaccid
vivacity of my last dinner party.
I take my cue from statues posing only
in their shoulder pads of snow: all January
you can see them working on their granite tans.
That I woke at an ungainly hour,
stripped of the merchandise that clothed me,
distilled to pure suchness,
means not enough to anyone for me
to confess. I do not suffer
from the excess of taste
that spells embarrassment:
mothers who find their kids unseemly
in their condom earrings,
girls cringing to think
they could be frumpish as their mothers.
Though the late nonerotic Elvis
in his studded gut of jumpsuit
made everybody squeamish, I admit.
Rule one: the King must not elicit pity.
Was the audience afraid of being tainted
— this might rub off on me —
or were they — surrendering —
what a femme word — feeling
solicitous — glimpsing their fragility
in his reversible purples
and unwholesome goldish chains?
At least embarrassment is not an imitation.
It’s intimacy for beginners,
the orgasm no one cares to fake.
I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.
Top Five Movies with Train Action Scenes:
1. French Connection
2. Spiderman
3. The Firm
4. Great Expectations (with DeNiro and Ethan Hawke)
5. The Great Train Robbery
2. Spiderman
3. The Firm
4. Great Expectations (with DeNiro and Ethan Hawke)
5. The Great Train Robbery
Bonus: Bourne Identity, Silver Streak, and North by Northwest.
Try this fun horror movie game courtesy of M&Ms (I got 49 out of 50 and had to cheat on the last one):
[Since Halloween is around the corner, I invite readers to send in horror-themed top five lists. Also, tell us what you’re planning to be this year for Halloween. – E]
Unbelievable But Real Film Title of the Week:
Eden For Hedonists (1987)
Madman new media poet Jason Nelson writes from Australia:
“Try out my new creation. Enter one of your poems into its slightly 3-d lines. Press new.”
E-Verse PSA:
Please note that E-Verse Radio is sent out on once-weekly basis for the time being. It appears every Monday morning. I urge readers to visit the website, www.everseradio.com, and comment in the “Comments” field at the bottom of the installment once it’s posted (give it a few hours to appear). Comments will be gathered, edited, and included in the next e-mail installment, just as before. Let me know you’re out there!
More features will be added to the website, including a page dedicated to books and magazines by E-Verse readers. I’m building a list now, so go ahead and send in the name of your book, your name, the ISBN number, and a link to the Amazon page. Likewise, if you edit a print magazine, send in the name, ISSN number, and link to the magazine’s website. Webzines will be placed into a separate page later.
Invaluable Fact of the Week:
Earth’s moon is tilted by roughly 5 degrees in relation to Earth’s own orbit around the Sun. By contrast, most other planets in our solar system show a tilt of only 1 to 2 degrees. Researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado believe that the moon’s odd tilt is indicative of a giant impact from a Mars-sized rock at least 4.4 billion years ago.
This week’s town you really have to visit:
King Arthur’s Court, Michigan
A reader writes in with a town you really have to visit:
“Spink, South Dakota. (I tried to visit it once, but couldn’t find it. Followed all the signs but ran out of road signs and wound up in a farmer’s yard. Gave up and went back to wherever I came from.)”
A composer offers “Eight sentences about classical music I’d be happy never to read again:”
A reader on albums named after cities and states:
“Did you already list ‘Massachusetts’ by the Scud Mountain Boys?”
The biology of B-movie monsters:
A personal library is an X-ray of the owner’s soul, says Jay Parini:
E-Verse collective noun of the week:
A bed of oysters
An E-Verser invites you to visit his art and poetry blogs:
A soprano on E-Verse would like to invite you:
Thank goodness for E-verse Radio!!! So glad you are back up and running. You were missed! I include an invitation to a humanitarian benefit concert at Lincoln Center given by myself and some of my opera-singin’ pals in the hope that you could aid and abet our grassroots efforts to get the word out. Any forwarding of this email, or featuring of parts of it (plus our website address) on an E-Verse email, would be a true boon… and, after all, what is opera if not sung poetry?! On October 6th, 25 bucks will get you 48 fantastic artists at Lincoln Center — including some of this generation’s most prominent rising opera stars — lifting their voices for a great cause. Together for one evening only, these artists are donating their performances to benefit Julliard’s newly created SING FOR HOPE Prize for Arts Activism and Community Outreach. It would be an honor if you could join us for this event. Additionally, as we are relying on grass-roots efforts to get the word out, we would be most grateful if you would take a moment and forward this email to anyone whom you think might be interested. For details, please refer to the press release below, or visit the SING FOR HOPE website:
And visit this accomplished E-Verser’s own website:
An E-Verser writes in with a call for submissions:
“A website is seeking poetry that has a science theme. It will be an ‘Accept or Reject‘ process and will involve no critiquing of the poem itself. The website is http://hhs55.com/ and you may view poems that have been accepted at http://hhs55.com/page9.html. Two of mine are there and I can attest to the work that goes into such an endeavor!! But it is a great opportunity and challenge to meet the requirements. Any poet may send their works to cobalt@muchomail.com“
An E-Verser announces her new novel:
“Scags at 7 is now available for purchase online from www.kedziepress.com. Visit the website to learn about Deborah Emin’s soon-to-be-published novel of a young girl’s summer vacation in a 1950’s suburban landscape where all seems to be keen-o until our little hero notices her father is coming apart and no one can fix him. A new novel from a new and environmentally responsible press.”
E-Verse Radio is not working on a memoir. 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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1 Comment
Readers write in on the top five trains scenes in movies:
“Should #2 on the list actually be SpiderMan 2 (he asked geekily).”
Another:
“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:
“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 Seige 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).”