Dec.8 at Pete's Candy Store Reading
If any of you lovely people will be in Brooklyn next THURSDAY, DEC.8, please come and see the reading at Pete's Candy Store "The most intimate reading space in Brooklyn. Think of a fine pre-war dining car with an endless supply of booze.” Unfortunately, I just got an email that Adam will be in Cali this week. I'll try to make it entertaining. Cheers.
It's Free, on Thursday December 8, at 7:30 p.m.
- pete's candy store -
709 lorimer street - williamsburg, Brooklyn - 11211
(718) 302 - 3770
For More info:
http://www.petescandystore.com/reading/index.html
In Praise of Difficult...Novels
On Monday night, we had a benefit reading here to raise money for the local food bank, and I got Rick Moody to come and read from DIVINERS, his new book. And we had an interesting conversation over dinner and I wanted you folks to weigh in. I think I may have had this same conversation with Mr. Renfro in the corner of the Foxhead once.
Over dinner, we were talking about difficult novels. And by we, I need to let you know up front that I was likely the LEAST QUALIFIED PERSON EVER to be participating in this conversation...but here I was, seated amongst Robert Olen Butler, Rick Moody and Mark Winegardner at dinner (yes, Iowans, we get real writers here too). And we got to discussing the American book critic's reticence to read and comment favorably on longer books.
One of the shockers of the evening was Mr. Moody's admission that he had been asked to review Thomas Pynchon's
Mason and Dixon by one of the big magazines precisely because no other reviewer would touch it, given its 1000-page length.
In order to achieve maximum brevity and pith, I am asking--what is the hardest book you've ever read, and ideally, what did you learn from it. I'll start with two...Women and Men by Joseph McElroy, and The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. I felt I had to read them both, though I'd like the 3 months I spent with Musil (reading about 100 pages a day--it's a 2 volume door stop, and no, I didn't finish) back.
No votes for Infinite Jest are allowed, because none of you actually read all of the ancillary material, or all of the footnotes, did you?
The Unbird
A fancy holiday recipe from the fancy new vegetarian in Ohio.
I don't know yet how the unbird tastes, but it sounds delicious:
Artificial Turkey-Flavored Protein Loaf
1 1/2 lb. white beans
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg or egg substitute
1 cup milk
1 small onion, chopped
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. sage
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 cup artificially flavored turkey gravy
Mix all the ingredients except the gravy. Spread mixture into an ungreased pan loaf, or shape into a loaf (a turkey-shaped loaf, if you want to) in an ungreased 13x9 inch pan. Spoon artificially-flavored turkey gravy over the top. Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven until done, approximately 1 - 1 1/2 hours.
What are the rest of you Ropes cooking up this year?
taking it in the pokey
did anyone else happen to read
close range: wyomng stories? i picked it up because i am too excited to see
jake gyllenhaal and heath ledger do it. anyway, it turned out to be really good. it's kind of affected, but if you can get over your distrust of the author of
the shipping news appropriating the cowboy idiom, it's very energetic prose. one might say the author is drunk on honky-tonk, but it's still pretty good.
Marilynne and APS
Please see www.apublicaspace.org for a preview of the debut issue--we got a fantanstic essay from Marilynne...
Because it isn't over till the fat lady omits needless words...
In high school I had recurring nightmares that Luciano Pavoratti was my English teacher. At the time I thought it was just a simple, subconscious substitution of one pompous puffbag for another, but it turns out I was prescient. Classical music and English grammar are united at last. The Elements of Style now exists in
operatic form.
