"Literature Map"
Have you guys ever seen this? A "literature map" at http://www.literature-map.com/ where you type in an author's name to see, supposedly, how similar his work is to other authors'. It's like witnessing the big bang...one name spawns all the others, and they continue to expand until they form a floating static. So wierd.
Babies Are Fireproof: Next time you're in Oaktown...
oh thank you, all the good people I miss. i don't know yet about LA yet--the only place I really look forward to is IC now. --yiyun
p.s. A Public Space will have its website up in the next day or two. keep an eye on it. keep sending things in.
Read All About It
Winner of the biggest award for a short story collection, ever, in the whole world. Our very own Yiyun:
Frank O'Connor Award
Yiyun in NYT Magazine
Passing ThroughYiyun! Out of control! Awesome McFantastic!
Yiyun's Reading Schedule
Here's YL's reading sked, since I suspect she is too modest to post it herself. I got it off the Random House website. Go and see her read!!!! YL, please add to this if there are other readings... Best of luck!
10/3/2005 Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, CA 94925
415-927-0960
10/5/2005 A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books
601 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
415-441-6670
10/6/2005 Powell's City of Books
1005 W. Burnside Street
Portland, OR 97209
503-228-4651
10/7/2005 University Bookstore
4326 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
206-634-3400
10/14/2005 Prairie Lights Books
15 S. Dubuque Street
Iowa City, IA 52240
319-337-2681
Old-School Heat
I just wanted to share with y'all that I am so cold here that I actually have a jar of hot water at the foot of my bed. My next step is going to be to put a brick in the oven and then add that. Not the things I thought I would learn from old-fashioned novels and short stories, but nevertheless useful in this damn Puritan wilderness. Next I'll be calling it the "gin jar." Mmmm, gin.
Has anyone here read the novel by the ubiquitous Benjamin Kunkel? Can anyone explain his ubiquity?
Has anyone here seen "The Aristocrats"?
If you get a chance, check out the download "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" on
www.k-otix.com. I found it entertaining.
Later on,
Viz
Um, thanks. But I'd rather read Yiyun's book.
Or the New Yorker. Or the Chicago Tribune. But thanks. Today, along with my antidepressants, my friendly neighborhood pharmacist gave me this.
I wonder what the gift-with-purchase will be for birth control.
If anyone would like to read this book, I'd be more than happy to send it your way. I'll pay postage just to get it off my hands. Hell, I might even name a character after you.
I'm trying to think of a good book to give the pharmacist in return. Darwin comes to mind, but is a little dry. Suggestions?
So Many
So many reasons to say congrats.
Another announcement:
See Sana's story "Companion" in the October 3rd issue of the New Yorker.
It is her first published story.
I'll let that just stand there, meaningful.
show, not tell
Thanks, Sarah, for posting the book. As a return I will offer an entertaining tale of my recent unhappiness with Homeland Security (I bet this won't be the last time). Today my mother-in-law went to an American consulate to get a visa to visit us here because--we can't possibly go home (due to my unsolved immigration headache) so we thought she might as well come here to meet her grandsons. So: this Chinese lady in her sixties took a night train from the border of China and North Korea to this city, and was then told that she could not get a visa because she did not have a photo that showed she and my husband were indeed mother and son. She showed the officer that she brought all the possible documents, including my husband's birth certificate, but was told that they did not believe the papers because they could be false. They wanted to see a photo.
Now here's the dillema: my husband's family from this small town was not a rich family and for a long time they had to count it their blessing to have enough food for everyone on the dinner table. So they simply did not have the foresight to take any photos. When he went to college, they could have taken photos but I suppose they lacked foresight again. So now we can't provide the only thing that matters to the officer.
And then here are my random thoughts:
the visa officer wanted to be shown, not to be told, about the mother-son relationship;
but why would he trust a photo when it's much easier to fabricate than birth certificate?
photoshop could be a useful program in solving the problem;
should we, as precaution, start taking pictures not only the two sons but also WITH them in case one day homeland security asks for such evidence?
is it my illusion that America is becoming China was as I remembered?
And Another Thing
Also, it is finally time to buy this lovely book.
And send a hearty, congratulations, Yiyun's way.
Visit her website here:
yiyunli
Hitching Post
Word is, a certain James got himself hitched. And I know an Anna did because I saw her lifted high in a chair myself. Here she is, husband in hand, kicking up dust in her beautiful dress. There are some other people there too. I don't know who all of them are, but I could introduce you to the bar. This is just to say to those of us married and marrying left and right, congratulations, dears. May it be too perfect to write it.
Trash, Garbage, Offal, Dreck
I am not the only writer in my apartment building. I discovered this just now, taking out the trash. A man was sitting cross legged in the trash room with pencil behind his ear, another in his hand and one of those black and white marble covered composition books that in my high school we used for lab reports. Appropriate enough, I guess, as the trash room smells of formaldehyde and high school carpet rot. The guy waved as I maneuvered my trash into the chute and went on copying the list of contents pasted inside the Fresh Direct (online grocery) boxes some other neighbor had left out for recycling.
Naturally a "what the hell?" was in order.
He's writing a cookbook. Specifically on how to cook in small kitchens. When he's needs inspiration he checks out other people's Fresh Direct boxes to see if he can combine their weeks grocery orders into something palatable. This is his way of making sure recipes feature foods that real people buy. Real people like my neighbors in 408, who included three bags of dill pickle flavored potato chips, four pounds of grapefruit, and a case of butterscotch pudding in their order.
I'm afraid of what Cookbook Man comes up with for that one. Also, I'm scraping off my Fresh Direct labels from now on.
This gets me wondering though--what do you all do when (if) you get stuck?
hell yes
no new posts since the hurricane, so i hope everyone and family is all right.
maybe it's sacrilegious at this point, but i just picked up a copy of one of my all time favorite books at the library:
the outsiders (interview with the mysterious author here at nytimes.com). i forgot about it when we were talking about kid books and stuff, but this book rocked my world. i read it when i was ten, and for days i practiced folding a bandanna into a headband. if you read this book you will 100% definitely cut the sleeves off of your jean jacket.
also, the 20th anniversary dvd is out. teenage matt dillon is smokin' hot.
I wonder what the gift-with-purchase will be for birth control.
