My hairdryer started on fire the other day: it’s been that kind of week. Sparks flew, smoke rose and I yelped. Last day of teaching for week one of the summer intensive. Monday we’re off to London. I will not think of all the things that can go wrong, or how much writing I have…
Category: frustration
Algonquin Roundtable
This semester, as many of you know, I have been teaching a class about films that portray the lives of writers. Most recently we watched Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, which tells in part both Parker’s life and the coterie that was the Algonquin Roundtable (as drawn by the inimitable Hirschfeld here). It’s a…
Cranky
We headed up north again yesterday to meet Crispinus at the Parting Glass before the next Miller event: Panel Discussion – Film & The ImaginationThe panel will feature Jonathan Miller and Faculty members Tom Lewis (English), Marc-Andre Wiesman (Foreign Languages and Literatures), Erica Bastress-Dukehart (History), and Skidmore student Sean Mattison ’08. The pub was a…
That Kind of Day
But there are few moods that cannot be elevated by hearing (and seeing) the Dickies sing the Banana Splits theme.
Perspective
Andrew Vacchs, not a man known for pulling punches, offers his opinion on the business of writing in an interview with Pulp Pusher: TONY BLACK: You’ve described success in writing as a ‘crap shoot’, would you care to expand? ANDREW VACHSS: Bottom line: this nonsense of “cream always rises to the top” is crap. Look…
PCA etc
Miss Wendy reminds me I need to be planning for San Francisco. The final schedule for PCA is up online (with my strange paper title correct, hurrah!). Suddenly so much to do — and always less time in which to do it. Somehow I’m going to get loads of writing done over spring break, right?…
What Fred Said
Fred Vargas, archaeologist of the Middle Ages and crime novelist, interviewed in the Guardian:Since the 1970s, Vargas argues, serious literature has regarded stories as “slightly silly”, forcing them to become “refugees” in the crime novel. “It has been a literature of narcissism about ‘me and my family’, ‘me and my problems’, ‘me and my lover’….
Happy Birthday, Elena!
Yep, another day of celebrations: our pal Elena celebrates her birthday today and her anniversary with Rod — four kids and umpteen years later, they’re still like a couple of teenagers together. Inspiring! [but incorrect — Elena reminds me their anniversary is in May. My PDA led me astray; but that doesn’t mean it isn’t…
Viva le Vegas
We’ve been indulging in a Johnny Vegas smörgåsbord of late, everything from the oh-so-accurately named 18 Stone of Idiot (by the by, U.S. readers: 1 stone = 14 lbs.) to the Johnny Vegas Guide to Evangelicals (far more interesting than it sounds), with stops off at Room 101 and various random tidbits. I think it…