Introducing CCLaP Fridays
I will be writing reviews and themed essays at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. Continue reading Introducing CCLaP Fridays
Category: TV
What I’m Reading 2012 and Other Business
What I’m Reading 2012 Overview: I’m currently reading five books. Each poses certain challenges (in some cases, self-imposed challenges) to me as a reader, reviewer, critic, historian, and aesthete. While New Year’s Resolutions get broken seconds after they’re uttered, these challenges will form an informal backbone to my reading schedule. As it stands, I want to increase the frequency of my blog posts from bimonthly to weekly. (The same goes for my other blog, Coffee is for Closers.) The positive responses from readers has really inspired me to do more. As you’ll see with these challenges, I want to “raise … Continue reading What I’m Reading 2012 and Other Business
The Letter Killers Club, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovksy
New York Review Books publishes a forgotten classic of genre mashups and social satire. Continue reading The Letter Killers Club, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovksy
The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl, by Marc Schuster
Audrey Corcoran is unhappy, affected by the vague nameless malaise that creeps into those with thwarted ambitions and unrealized desires. Audrey works at Eating Out, a “shopper magazine” one usually sees in grocery stores and restaurants. In this case, the “magazine” – really a glorified press release and advertising delivery device – caters to the businesses on the Golden Mile, a strip of middlebrow chains and franchises. The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl chronicles Audrey’s alienation and annoyance at the petty power games and trivialities in her comfortable middle class existence. Living with her two children, the … Continue reading The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom & Party Girl, by Marc Schuster
Bones Beneath Our Feet by Michael Schein
Subtitled “A Historical Novel of Puget Sound,” Michael Schein’s Bones Beneath Our Feet tells us the story of two men, Isaac Stevens, Mexican-American War veteran and first governor of Washington Territory, and Leschi, Chief of the Nisqually tribe. Published by Bennett & Hastings, a Seattle-based independent publisher, the novel, at first glance, appears like yet another retelling of a White Man-vs.-Native American conflict told with the subtlety of an afternoon special. “Remember kids, the white man is a pure embodiment of evil while the Native Americans are innocent, Nature-loving gentlefolk.” This is the simplistic moralizing found in everything from Dances … Continue reading Bones Beneath Our Feet by Michael Schein
Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham
West Coast author Mary Kennedy Eastham has been quite busy lately. Her book of poetry, the Shadow of a Dog I Can’t Forget, was one of my first review copies I received. I talked with her via an email interview. Here is what she had to say about her recent projects, the art of writing, her love of dogs, and her favorite writers. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR CREATIVE PROJECTS? I am trying so hard to finish my novel NIGHT SURFING. Writing a novel is very different from writing a short story or writing a poem. There are so many more … Continue reading Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham
Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor
One doesn’t have to walk far into a bookstore to get assaulted with self-help books and memoirs. Much like people with blogs, everyone thinks they have something valuable to say. In addition to memoirs by randomly generated Kardashians the upcoming election season brings with it the fatuous “campaign biography” ghostwritten by the candidate’s staffers not currently concocting an attack ad or planting a piece of journalism with a compliant member of the Fourth Estate. It is with relief that Kimberly A. Taylor’s hybrid memoir/self-help book is available. Play Fair! The Art of Relationship and Friendship presents the reader with … Continue reading Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor
Inside Gilligan’s Island: from creation to syndication (1988) by Sherwood Schwartz
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip That started from this tropic port Aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailing man, The skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day For a three hour tour, a three hour tour. The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island by George Wyle and Sherwood Schwartz Sherwood Schwartz created two of the most iconic and influential TV series with Gilligan’s Island (1964 – 1967) and the Brady Bunch (1969 – 1974). Prior to his work as a show-runner, he worked on My Favorite … Continue reading Inside Gilligan’s Island: from creation to syndication (1988) by Sherwood Schwartz
The Lime Works by Thomas Bernhard @ Joe Bob Briggs
Thomas Bernhard (1931 – 1989) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest prose stylists. He belongs to the trinity of novelists who died early, the other two being W.G. Sebald and Roberto Bolano. Along with Sebald and Bolano, Bernhard’s works are experiencing a popular revival coupled with attention from academic and critical circles. To understand Bernhard’s peculiar brand of fiction one has to examine his country of origin. Austria’s intellectual and literary community minted numerous famous names in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An incomplete list would include the following: journalist-critic Karl Kraus, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, psychologist Sigmund Freud, Nobel … Continue reading The Lime Works by Thomas Bernhard @ Joe Bob Briggs
Critical Appraisals: Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
During the Thirties, Louis-Ferdinand Céline shocked the literary establishment with the release of two novels: Journey to the End of the Night (1932) and Death on the Installment Plan (1936). Both novels acted as companions to each other, focusing on different parts of re-imagined autobiographical material set within fictional narratives. Ralph Manheim, the translator of Death on the Installment Plan, dubbed the genre “creative confessions.” The original French title is Mort à crédit, a staccato-sounding title that became translated as Death on Credit by John H. P. Marks. The book braids together the strands of comedy, despair, and debt, since … Continue reading Critical Appraisals: Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The Driftless Area Review 