Tag: fiction

books, film, Interviews, The Internet2 Comments

An Interview with David Schmahmann, author of The Double Life of Alfred Buber

driftlessareareview

Why is Alfred Buber an important character for modern readers? Alfred Buber’s story is a riff off several things: isolation, male loneliness, a feeling some of us may have that for others life is richer, more sensual, more rewarding than it ever will be for us. Buber is frozen by that feeling, by the sense that he is a spectator at his own life, shut out of any chance at love, at being wanted, at feeling full and satisfied. He mistakes these feelings, I think, for desire, and I believe many men do this: conflate loneliness with desire, as if … Continue reading An Interview with David Schmahmann, author of The Double Life of Alfred Buber

Rate this:

books, film, Interviews, nature, The Internet, TV1 Comment

Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham

driftlessareareview

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

Rate this:

book reviews, books, The Internet, TV1 Comment

Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor

driftlessareareview

    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

Rate this:

book reviews, books, film, food, Permanent Press1 Comment

The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

driftlessareareview

KUMAR(to Goldstein)Well, if you have the yellow fever tonight, there’s a rocking Asian party over at Princeton tonight. GOLDSTEIN Man, I have the yellow plague. There’s nothing sexier than a hot Asian chick…or dude for that matter… Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (Danny Leiner, 2004), script by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing.  But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (1867) by Karl Marx A Woman of Property David Schmahmann … Continue reading The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

Rate this:

books, film, food, Interviews, The Internet1 Comment

An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press

driftlessareareview

Can you explain why you named your press Vulgar Marsala? We’re named for an image in DH Lawrence’s “Medlars and Sorb Apples”, from his seminal/groundbreaking collection “Birds, Beasts, and Flowers”.  I toyed with an assortment of names that encompassed a lot of literary and mythological and film references, etc, but ultimately this one stuck…more intuitively/impulsively than intellectually.  It’s an eye-catching name…maybe an amusingly misleading one, until you know what its axe is (some have even assumed it’s some kind of sex publication /site, what with the word “vulgar”). What attracted you to the work of Chad Faries? I’ve described his … Continue reading An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press

Rate this:

book reviews, books, nature1 Comment

The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

driftlessareareview

With inspiration taken from Arthur Mee’s turn of the century work called The Children’s Encyclopedia, “that cared nothing about alphabetization,” Chad Faries wrote The Book of Knowledge.  Like The Children’s Encyclopedia, this little volume of poetry represents “a tapestry of complete knowledge,” embracing everything from cartography to sexuality to regional history (in this case, Iron County, Michigan) to animals and the avant-garde.  Published by the puckish literary upstart calling itself The Vulgar Marsala Press, the Book of Knowledge has four sections with abundant illustrations peppered throughout. Faries possesses a poetic voice intellectual, eccentric, and playful.  Despite his PhD in Creative … Continue reading The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

Rate this:

book reviews, booksLeave a comment

My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing by Eric G. Wilson

driftlessareareview

Within the confines of 85 pages, Eric Wilson’s My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing offers a cornucopia for the aspirant writer.  The tiny book defies conventional categories, much like its subject, William Blake (1757 – 1827).  A Blake biography, a creative writing manual, and a map of influences, epigrams, and philosophy all come into play. William Blake was a poet and artist living in the Britain, who, like his contemporary the Marquis de Sade (1740 – 1814), lived between the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic Era.  Blake grew up as a Christian Nonconformist and struggled with making … Continue reading My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing by Eric G. Wilson

Rate this:

book reviews, books, TVLeave a comment

Inside Gilligan’s Island: from creation to syndication (1988) by Sherwood Schwartz

driftlessareareview

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

Rate this:

book reviews, booksLeave a comment

Aberration of Starlight (1980) by Gilbert Sorrentino

driftlessareareview

The slim novel Aberration of Starlight by Gilbert Sorrentino traces the events one summer in 1939 through the perspectives of four different characters.  The title is taken from an astrological phenomenon involving the movement of both the observer and the subject under observation.  Right from the start, Sorrentino will upend the reader’s expectations.  The four characters lives become revealed through various narrative techniques.  These include letters, question-and-answer, and stream of consciousness. The four main characters are Billy Recco, the son of Marie Recco.  He idolizes Tom Thebus, a salesman wooing Marie, much to the chagrin of Marie’s father, John McGrath.  … Continue reading Aberration of Starlight (1980) by Gilbert Sorrentino

Rate this:

book reviews, books, Permanent Press2 Comments

Black Swan: A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery (Book 5) by Chris Knopf

driftlessareareview

Chris Knopf begins Black Swan with an epic set piece.  During a ferocious October storm off the coast of Long Island, Sam Acquillo pilots the Carpe Mañana to safety with the help of his companion Amanda Anselma.  His dog, the ever faithful and frisky Eddie Van Halen lays below decks, asleep in medicated bliss, avoiding the dangers of the open seas.  The craft eventually gets piloted to Fishers Island, New York, a bizarre socioeconomic enclave on Long Island, home to Old Money and a xenophobic underclass.  (Chris Knopf visited the theme of natural disasters and social friction in Elysiana, a … Continue reading Black Swan: A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery (Book 5) by Chris Knopf

Rate this: