March 20, 2007
IF YOU CAN'T SAVE IT, AT LEAST DOCUMENT IT
This week's feature at Gotham Gazette (put out by the Citzens Union Foundation) is an transcript of a recent Gotham Gazette Readiny NYC Book Club meeting. Featured guests were Kevin Walsh of ForgottenNY and Roberta Gratz, the author of two books about urban development. Walsh recently published a book version of his site and I was reading it in the Grand Central Terminal bookstore the other day [if Kevin is reading this, rest assured I intend to actually buy a copy soon] and it is fantastic. Forgotten New York: Views of Lost Metropolis is an everyman's guide to discovering the little-known about the city, as well as documenting and sharing the bits of NYC that are disappearing without most of us even knowing they were there. The Gotham Gazette transcript comes with some great photos illustrating essential NYC items lost to the ages. Here's some of the transcript:
In 1963, they also eliminated all the cast iron lampposts on 6th avenue. These lampposts dated back to 1910. Overnight, they were wiped out. Even at that young age, I had been filling notebooks with drawings of these cast iron lampposts, in all their different designs.
Those two events put a kernel in my head: you better get stuff on camera before they destroy it. Much to my regret, I didn't do anything about it until 1998. Imagine if I had done that all those years.
With the onset of the Internet, I got the idea of doing a Web site called Forgotten New York about all the things that you see in the street that are unusual, unnoted, that people don't look at or don't see.
In New York everybody's rushing around. They're not looking up, they're not looking down. They just want to get where they're going. But I took a slow walk around, and took a bicycle, and looked at the painted ads on the side of buildings. Some of these things go back to the 1880s. There's one on 17th street and 6th avenue that talks about Victorian carriages and trotters for horses. We call them Wall Dogs ads, because the guys who used to paint them were called wall dogs.
I took photographs of all this ephemera – all these things that people had not noticed. I got a critical mass of 50 pages together, and I set up the Web site. We have been around for eight years, and we've got four million hits so far. So it's been moderately popular.
Read the whole transcript.
Tagged: architecture, books, forgotten ny, gotham gazette, kevin walshPosted by Lexiphane at 9:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 25, 2007
I'LL NEVER READ THIS , BUT I GET THE PICTURE
The New York Times had a piece yesterday about what may be the most ironic book ever written. Currently only published in France, negotiations are underway for British and American rights to How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Parisian literature professor Pierre Bayard. The aim of the book is to allay readers' (or rather, non-readers') guilt or embarrassment at not having read books they felt they should have, either out of vanity or insecurity.
“I am surprised because I hadn’t imagined how guilty nonreaders feel,” Mr. Bayard, 52, said in an interview. “With this book, they can shake off their guilt without psychoanalysis, so it’s much cheaper.”
Mr. Bayard reassures them that there is no obligation to read, and confesses to lecturing students on books that he has either not read or has merely skimmed. And he recalls passionate exchanges with people who also have not read the book under discussion.
Remember, this is a professor of literature at the university level. His book is essentially a primer on fatuous disingenuousness.
Having demonstrated that non-readers are in good company, Mr. Bayard then offers tips on how to cover up ignorance of a “must-read” book.
Meeting a book’s author can be particularly tricky. Here, Mr. Bayard said there was no need to display knowledge of the book, since the author already has his own ideas about it. Rather, he said, the answer is “to speak well of it without entering into details.” Indeed, all the author needs to hear is that “one has loved what he has written.”
Domestic life is another potentially hazardous zone. People often want their spouses and partners to share their love of a particular book. And when this happens, Mr. Bayard said, they can both inhabit a “secret universe.” But if only one has read the book, silent empathy may offer the best way out.
Students, he noted from experience, are skilled at opining about books they have not read, building on elements he may have provided in a lecture. This approach can also work in the more exposed arena of social gatherings: the book’s cover, reviews and other public reaction to it, gossip about the author and even the current conversation can all provide food for sounding informed.
One alternative, he said, is to try to change the subject. Another is to admit not knowing a particular book while suggesting knowledge of the so-called “collective library” into which the book fits.
But Mr. Bayard’s most daring suggestion is that nonreaders should talk about themselves, using the pretext of the book without dwelling on its contents. In this way, he said, they are forced to tap their imagination and, in effect, invent their own book.
“To be able to talk with finesse about something one does not know is worth more than the universe of books,” he writes. [emphasis mine]
I'm not sure how to respond to that other than to caution with the aphorism "It is better to keep one's mouth shut and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and prove it." Frankly, I don't see what's so difficult about admitting you haven't read a book. I read a lot, but still consider myself generally ill-read. Present me with a list of the 100 most essential works of the Western canon and I can assure you that I haven't even read one in five. Am I sometimes embarrassed to admit that I've never read any of the Russian novelists? Sure, but I'd be a lot more embarrassed of and to myself if I tried to pretend that I had. If anything, I know there's always something good to read out there that I just haven't gotten around to yet.
This Bayard's book sounds like almost the exact opposite of Maureen Corrigan's Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself In Books or Harold Bloom's How To Read And Why. Both books are meditations on the pleasure of reading for pleasure's sake. They entail a viewpoint that literature is better used as a source of intellectual enjoyment than intellectual embarrassment. At least I think they do; I didn't finish either book.
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January 20, 2007
A GRACIOUS GESTURE
The other week I was interested in a gallery show about a preeminent urban photographer, Philip Trager. The photographer is well reputed for his work with large format cameras and pictures of NYC, although that's not nearly his entire range. So I wrote a piece in anticipation and then wrote another after I'd actually visited the gallery.
A couple of weeks after that last post, I will admit that I was shocked/flattered/gratified when Mr. Trager [or his assistant?] sent me an email expressing his thanks for my interest in his show and the fact that I enjoyed myself viewing his prints. Yesterday, I received his latest book, titled simply Philip Trager
Objectively speaking, the book is gorgeous: photographs from Connecticut to Italy, with not a few pages of NYC architecture that could leave one reeling. If one is a fan of photography or architecture, I would have to recommend this volume as essential. If one is a phillistine rube with a big empty spot on your coffee table, go ahead and get it; trust me.
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December 17, 2006
THE PEN AND THE SWORD
The New York Times had an interesting feature the other day, asking authors their recommendations on books about war. Excerpted:
MICHAEL WALZER,
professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and author of “Just and Unjust Wars.”
J. Glenn Gray, “The Warriors” (1959). A brilliant philosophical reflection on combat. Gray writes especially well about two seemingly contradictory subjects: the enduring appeal of combat and the guilt soldiers feel for the injuries they inflict.
Geoffrey Blainey, “The Causes of War” (1973). A fine piece of historical analysis, which tries to explain how and why wars begin — and why, sometimes, they don’t.
No one asked me, but here are two recommendations I think are indespensible reading:
Tagged:
"Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars And The Rise of American Power" by Max Boot. The author sidesteps the obvious and outlines the United States's almost constant involvement in military interventions around the globe that serve the country's interests. Contrary to the perception that the U.S. has been a historically isolationist and reluctant participator in foreign wars, Boot shows that almost from the nation's inception, America has taken up arms far from home to enforce its will."Martyr's Day" by Michael Kelly. Quite possibly the best piece of wartime journalism ever produced. Kelly eschewed the pool-reporting paradigm of the first Gulf War and headed out with another enterprising journalist in a beat-up sedan across the desert to tally the horrendous toll of war and "peaceful despotism" in the Middle East. The author was lucky to make it back to the States alive, luck that would not hold out through the current war. This small book stands as an enduring testament to the author's talent and humanism in the face of the worst things one hopes to never witness.
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December 15, 2006
OUT ON HER ASS, BUT PROBABLY LANDING ON HER FEET
Judith Regan, eponymous head of the ReganBooks imprint at HarperCollins, got the boot from her parent company today in an economically worded two-sentence news release. Ostensibly, the catalyst was the totally botched release of one of the single-most distasteful publishing efforts ever: O.J. Simpson's maybe-maybe not-tell-all on how he butchered his wife and another man before getting away with it.
In truth, however, I bet this was Judith Regan's long legacy of sweeping trash down the halls of an industry that takes pride in its hifalutin nature and legacy, and doing so very profitably.
It is also unclear whether Ms. Regan has been terminated wholly from any employment with the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s giant media company, which owns HarperCollins. Over the years, Ms. Regan has gained a growing amount of sway within the corporation because of her ability to generate profits from books and other ventures.
In recent years, she has helped to produce television series and specials like “Growing Up Gotti,” a series about the children of the crime family don John Gotti, which was broadcast on the A&E cable channel. Ms. Regan served as an executive producer of that program and others, including a television special with Jenna Jameson, the adult film actress whose best-selling memoir, “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star,” was published by ReganBooks.
Typical of Ms. Regan’s ability both to enrich and infuriate those who did business with her, Ms. Jameson later sued Ms. Regan over rights to a proposed reality television series featuring the actress.
Porn stars and murderers: it's not exactly timeless literary endeavors over at ReganBooks. I recently read she hoped to recover from the O.J. book debacle with a "liberally detailed" biography of Mickey Mantle.
Ms. Regan has continued to court controversy even after the O. J. Simpson incident. Publishers Weekly, a trade journal, reported this week that a planned book about Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee baseball player, was drawing stunned reactions within the publishing world over its questionable content.
The book, titled “7: The Mickey Mantle Novel,” is by Peter Golenbock, a longtime sports author, who referred to the book as an “inventive memoir,” according to Publishers Weekly. An article about the book said that people who had read preliminary copies described it as containing long passages describing sexual activity and other inflammatory episodes told in Mr. Mantle’s voice, but which were not authenticated.
Judith Regan doesn't restrict her trashiness to the books she publishes. Remember back to the immolation of Bernard Kerik as the erstwhile Bush nominee for head of Homeland Security a few years ago. Kerik went down in flames after it was revealed that he was using city funds to maintain a Ground Zero pied a terre in Battery Park more to "entertain" Judith Regan than keep an eye on security and reconstruction.
Fortunately for Regan, she's got her finger on America's cultural and literary pulse, i.e., people love shitty trash with little lasting value. That apparently rubbed some of her former colleagues the wrong way, but she'll no doubt continue to laugh all the way to the bank.
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October 11, 2006
EASTER RISING
'Tis, the follow-up to Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes--that ended in an escape to America from poverty and desperation in Cork to a hopeful new start in America--wound up being a depressing repeat exhibit of the author's father's self-destructive alcoholism.
A few years ago. Michael Patrick MacDonald wrote a similar memoir of growing up in a community of dysfunction and poverty among the Irish, except it was of Irish Americans living in the Cork of America: South Boston, an insular community plagued by criminality, discrimination, poverty, and substance abuse. It's called All Souls and I highly recommend it.
Unable to flee a country where he saw four of his brothers die, MacDonald fled to a different social milieu: the '80s punk scene and eventually NYC's Lower East Side. Unlike McCourt, who waited until old age to acknowledge himsef, MacDonald came to terms with his past and wrote his memoir at an early age. His follow-up parallels McCourt's in that, what do you do when you escape?
I know the author and talked to him a few times while he was writing this book. The last time I talked to him was on the subway. You've never seen anyone until he's wrung out and a few weeks past his publisher's deadline, trying to finish the story of his life. That is pressure. The revelation that he was part of the '80s punk scene is amazing, because he's the most soft-spoken and reserved guy I've ever met.
I haven't read the new book Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up From Under yet, but plan on doing so soon.
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October 2, 2006
FORGOTTEN NEW YORK
This is exciting, to metrophiles anyway. Kevin Walsh has published a book called "Forgotten New York: Views of a Lost Metropolis." Walsh is the proprietor and editor of a site named Forgotten NY that, packed with historical info and tons of photos, is a a wealth of instant virtual field trips for anyone interested in the arcana and hidden layers of NYC. He also conducts actual field trips to scout out the less well-known spots of the boroughs and dig into the history of NYC.
Forgotten NY is a great site to visit--I highly recommend it--and I can't wait to buy Walsh's book. It's urban archeology and history at its most entertaining and interesting form.
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August 15, 2006
COLD COMFORT
Any bloggers out there worried that, "Oh, I don't live in NYC! I don't live in the terrordome that is NYC publishing! I may be lacking some cache for not shacking up in a Brooklyn hellhole, when I got to pitch my latest manuscript, with a weak-ass return address!" Yeah I wouldn't worry about that too much.
The other evening I was at a magnificnent home-hosted soiree that including rolling die and chugging two-hundred-proof grain alcohol fortified in an otherwise classy sangria--so it was one of those class Manhattan affairs. Afterwards, I escorted my hostess to a local watering hole where a bunch of drunk Aussie dudes were getting ready to punch out a pirate kitchen crew from a nearby eaterie for horning in on my two lovely female guests. I like to stand off and observe.
While we were at the aforementioned bar, the tender claimed that it may have been something along the worst night of her life, or so her expression revealed and perhaps augmented by the members of my party absently minded smashing 16oz pint glasses on the floor, on account of gravity and whatnot. My friend K tried to comfort her by saying "Hey, it's not like you're in the Seventh Level of Hell, from Dante's Inferno, or anything." The young woman next to her said something to the effect of: "Oh yeah, I saw that movie. And it was the worst Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan flick ever."
That's flinging a lot of credit at the Ro-Com genre. Sleepless in Seattle could have been fingered as the Seventh Level of Hell, but a literal interpretation gives a lot of credit to the screenwriter of "Sleepless" or trashes a few hundred years of classical literature. Plus, I prefer the Divine Comedy title, for verisimilitude and pretentioness.
But I digress. Not living in NYC in a ramshackle hellhole will probably hurt you. Sorry.
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August 9, 2006
F&F AT B&N
Anyone who's become entranced with the magic of NYC holds--or should--a special place in his or her heart for the novel Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin. Sprawling and epic, it tells the tale of undying love in Gotham, spanning multiple generations and dimensions. Those who have read the opening chapter will never stand outside Bowling Green and view it the same way again, without thinking of Peter Lake and a vaulting white horse.
While Winter's Tale is his most famous novel, British author Mark Helprin has a new book out: Freddy and Fredericka, about . . . well, I really don't know. I guess he'll have to tell me. Helprin will be two blocks up the street in two hours at the 7th Ave. B&N in Park Slope.
UPDATE: Helprin has defintely made a deal with the devil. Not only is he a good writer, but a fabulously entertaining raconteur. And while he claims he's in his 60s, the man looks like he's in his 30s. I hate him, but good for him.
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July 28, 2006
LIFE SHRINKS--AND THEN SOMETIMES, IT DOESN'T
Rupert Pole was erotic memoirist and novelist Anais Nin's second husband. She just forgot to get rid of her first husband first. Pole passed away this week in Silver Lake, CA at the age of 87. After first marrying a NYC banker, Hugh Guiler, Nin decided to go in the polar opposite direction with Pole, who was an actor and then a forest ranger. From Pole's obit in yesterday's New York Sun:
Nin conversed all evening with the stunningly handsome [sic, text breaks off here with no explanation] Not only did she find him physically irresistible, she was impressed by his emotional sensitivity and knowledge of Eastern philosphies. The night she met him, Nin, who was 44 to his 28, wrote in her diary: "Danger! He is probably homosexual!"To her vast relief, she soon discovered that Pole was not only thoroughly heterosexual but far more adept in bed than Hugh "Hugo" Guiler, the New York banker whom she had married in 1923. Pole thought Nin was divorced, and asked her to go west with him.
This is where it gets priceless. Anais Nin decided to keep both husbands and their respective marriages secret from each other. More from Pole's obit:
Both men apparently chose to believe her lies, which became so voluminous that she wrote them down on index cards and locked them in a box so that she could keep her stories straight. She referred to the web of lies as her "trapeze."
I know some whacked-out chicks, but that is just awesome!
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July 14, 2006
THE ANNOYANCE OF BEING EARNEST
I just finished reading The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail, by Jerome Lwarence and Robert E. Lee. It's a play written in 1970 featuring the titled protagonist spending a night in the local Concord, MA jail for failing to pay his taxes, in protest of the U.S.' military involvement in Mexico.
The authors were obviously using it as an allegory anti-war protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The play is an interesting examination of Thoreau's anarchist political leanings and transcendentalist philosophical groundings. Overall, however, the play is insufferably earnest and reads like it was written by a pair of teenagers inflamed with "the injustice of it all." Mature readers may come away wanting to slap Thoreau's ghost more than admiring him. Here's how the authors describe their hero:
(This is a young man--with a knife-like humor, fierce convicion and devastating
[emphasis mine] individuality.)
Oh my, I think I may be in love with such a devastatingly intense personality! Bear in mind, that's actually part of the text. If the authors went to the overhanded trouble of actually having the town crucify Thoreau, I'm sure he would have bled integrity from his pierced palms.
One interesting thing I noted while reading the play is how anti-Vietnam sentiments are being recycled literally for the current war:
"This unnecessary war was unconstitutionally commenced by the President, who may be telling us the Truth--but he is not telling the Whole Truth. He has swept the war on and on, in showers of blood. His mind, taxed beyond its powers, is running out like some tortorured creature on a burning surface!"
Wow, 35 years later and they're still wearing out the grooves on that broken record. Blah blah blah.
The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail is 24 hours in the life of Henry David Thoreau that illuminates the arc of his life, from idealistic recluse, to outspoken social critic. It's an interesting historical artificact. Reading it, however, one gets the sense that a reasonable person would be more likely to punch Thoreau in the face after a conversation than agree with him. He comes off as a self-righteous and naive fool than a sage at peace with the world. In fact, there is no peace to Thoreau's character at all. For a man supposedly at peace with the natural world, Thoreau is passionately indisposed to human relationships. In a better play, this would come off as a tragic flaw. In Lawrence and Lee's piece, it is more tragi-comedic.
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EVERYONE LOVES A HOT DOG
Back in March, I mentioned that acquaintance Joe Tavano--Joey T--was making good use of his time after leaving his video editor position at NBC's "Today Show" [see ONE FOR THE BOOKS, 3/28/06]. Joey wrote a children's book about a Dachsund that, like Pinocchio, would love to become a real live boy, but realizes that there's nothing better than being yourself. It's illustrated by Ji Yu.
The book was capsule reviewed in Entertainment Weekly last week and earned an A rating. Not bad for the catty forum.
A Dachshund's Wish
By Joe Tavano, illustrated by Ji Yu
What's it like to be a gamboling, adventurous little dachshund puppy, just freed from the pet store and brought into a loving home? Paws adores his new owners, especially young Jimmy, who dotes on the dog, even surreptitiously feeding him breakfast sausage. Paws idolizes Jimmy so much, in fact, that he'd like to turn into a boy himself, and he's surprised when the hedgehog in the backyard informs him his wish can come true. A charming, rollicking tale unfolds in this chapter book as Paws meets the various wild animals who live on the property. In the end he learns, of course, that it's best to be yourself, not someone else. (Author's note: Anyone who knows me knows my weakness for dachshunds: I have two of them. But I swear I didn't let my love for the smart, sassy little breed interfere with my critical ability here!) A —TJ
Recommended ages: 8 and up
Check it out. I plan on reading it this afternoon at B&N.
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June 6, 2006
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY GOOD
Author Jonathan Safran Foer is so goddamn precious that you'd probably want to slap him if you ever met him in person. Nonetheless, one has to admit he's one of the most talented writers of the modern era. His leaps of faith into creative literature pains me to think that a lot of people gorge themselves on books like The Da Vinci Code or regular potboilers.
Foer actually writes creatively to the point where it's not embarrassing where one would actually enjoy re-reading a page of prose to enjoy the words and contemplate their meaning. Here's an excerpt from his latest book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, about an 8-year-old who travels the five boroughs of NYC to discover a personal meaning over the death of his father on 9/11:
After a time, I had only a handfulf of words left, if someone did something nice for me, I would tell him, "The thing that comes before 'you're welcome,'" If I was hungry, I'd point at my stomach and say, "I am the opposite of full," I'd lost "yes," but I still had "no,", so what if someone asked me , "Are you Thomas?" I would answer, "Not no," but then I lost "no," I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of my left hand, and NO onto my right palm, what can I say, it hasn't made life wonderful, it's made life possible, when I rub my hands against each other in the middle of winter I am warming myself with the friction of YES and NO, when I clapped my hands I am showing my appreciation through the uniting and parting of YES and NO, I signify "book" by peeling open my clapped hands, every book, for me, is the balance of YES and NO, even this one, my last one, especially this one. Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent. I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. "I" was the last word I was able to speak aloud, which is a terrible thing, but there it is, I would walk around the neighborhood saying "I I I I." "You want a cup of coffee, Thomas?" "I." "And maybe something sweet?" "I." "How about this weather?" "I." "You look upset. Is anything wrong?" I wanted to say, "Of course." I wanted to ask, "Is anything right?" I wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from the beginning, but instead I said, "I." I know I'm not alone in this disease, you hear the old people in the street and some of them are moaning, "Ay ay yah,", but some of them are clinging to their last word, "I," they're saying, becauase they're desperate, it's not a complaint it's a prayer, and then I lost "I" and my silence was complete.
For a writer to contemplate the evanascence and possible disappearance of language itself by one of his characters is an astonishing feat. And that was just a short excerpt from a remarkable chapter that has yet to reveal its importance in the rest of the novel. J.S. Foer may be a preciously priveleged novelist who's accomplished extraordinary success at an early age and bought a mansion with his girlfriend in my neighborhood, but the guy's got some legit talent. Envy is usually the recognition of one's own deficiencies in comparison to another's actual abilities. I'm only on page 16 of Foer's second novel, but I'm eager to finish it. Not just finish it, but to savor some real literary talent. It's not a page turner. It's a page re-turner, where I find myself turning back and re-reading neverending paragraphs of truly original and creative prose. God I hate that bastard. I'm not the only one.
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May 13, 2006
IN GOOD COMPANY
This week I went to the Barnes & Noble in Union Square to search out my friend Chris Cihlar's book The Grilled Cheese Madonna and 99 Other of the Weirdest, Wackiest, Most Famous eBay Auctions Ever. After asking for it loudly at the Customer Service desk--I'm a one-man marketing machine--I was told that it was upstairs in the Humor section. I escalated my way up there and found it sitting on the shelf right next to Bill Cosby's books, as seen above. Granted, Margaret Cho's books were to his books' left and placing her in the Humor section is a bit of a stretch to say the least, but I think Chris is in good, albeit alphabetically aided, good company.
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April 25, 2006
A MILLION LITTLE CRIMSON EXPLUSION-WORTHY LIES
Oooh, who doesn't love an acclaimed Harvard student who garners a six-figure book deal before she decides on a major? Maybe someone who sees that young woman get nabbed for plagiarizing before the book hit the presses.
Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore accused of plagiarizing parts of her recently published chick-lit novel, acknowledged yesterday that she had borrowed language from another writer's books, but called the copying "unintentional and unconscious.The book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," was recently published by Little, Brown to wide publicity. On Sunday, The Harvard Crimson reported that Ms. Viswanathan, who received $500,000 as part of a deal for "Opal" and one other book, had seemingly plagiarized language from two novels by Megan McCafferty, an author of popular young-adult books.
As a best-case defense, any account of a first year of college by a young female author is going to seem sadly similar and familiar, i.e. got drunk; got laid; regret everything. Thus the popularity and attention paid to this book.
In an illustration of how nauseating the college application process has become, I offer the following excerpt:
In a profile published in The New York Times earlier this month, Ms. Viswanathan said that while she was in high school, her parents hired Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise, a private counseling service, to help with the college application process. After reading some of Ms. Viswanathan's writing, Ms. Cohen put her in touch with the William Morris Agency, and Ms. Viswanathan eventually signed with Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, an agent there.
Ms. Walsh said that she put Ms. Viswanathan in touch with a book packaging company, 17th Street Productions (now Alloy Entertainment), but that the plot and writing of "Opal" were "1,000 percent hers."
Only an English major would ever utter the phrase "1,000 percent". For Christ's sake!
Oh yeah, here's an excerpt from the book that Ms. Viswanathan allegedly plagiarized from, along with the lead editorial review from Amazon.com:
“My parents suck ass. Banning me from the phone and restricting my computer privileges are the most tyrannical parental gestures I can think of. Don’t they realize that Hope’s the only one who keeps me sane? . . . I don’t see how things could get any worse.”
When her best friend, Hope Weaver, moves away from Pineville, New Jersey, hyperobservant sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated. A fish out of water at school and a stranger at home, Jessica feels more lost than ever now that the only person with whom she could really communicate has gone. How is she supposed to deal with the boy- and shopping-crazy girls at school, her dad’s obsession with her track meets, her mother salivating over big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding, and her nonexistent love life?
Oh! My! God! Someone got into Harvard plagiarizing Sweet Valley High!
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March 28, 2006
A SECOND FOR THE BOOKS
Last week I went to a reading/demonstration by Megan Nicolay, author of Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt. The Brooklyn resident has put together a great how-to guide on turning ordinary t-shirts into works of sartorial art. The book is primarily aimed at women, but fortunately I have a few friends interested in cutting their shirts to ribbons.
The event at the Park Slope B&N was well attended and I suspect Ms. Nicolay is going to meet with even greater success someday than she already has. Plus, you always have to love an author who has her mom show up for her booksigning. Generation T is stuffed with interesting trivia about possibly the least interesting item of clothing ever. It's a great gift for any creative women you might know.
The GO-Brooklyn preview of her book and the woman is available here.
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ONE FOR THE BOOKS
One should never be surprised by talented people; and yet, it still happens. Joe Tavano, or "Joey T." as I know him, continues to come up with little unexpected developments. The multiple Emmy Award nominee--and I believe he's won a few--is having a book published this June. It's a children's book called A Dachsund's Wish and illustrated by Ji Yu. Some early capsules from Amazon.com:
"If you have a dachshund, read this book. You’ll love it. If not, read it anyway...a really good book." —Philip Gonzalez, coauthor, The Dog Who Rescues Cats: The True Story of Ginny"Joe Tavano has succeeded in the impossible: getting inside the mischievous and madcap mind of a puppy dachshund." —Michael Crewdson, author, Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger
"Kids will find this story irresistible while they learn valuable lifelong lessons...A must-read for elementary students." —Mary Wanzer, elementary school teacher, S.U.N.Y. adjunct professor
"Exudes a warm, loving feeling...[and] encourages self-acceptance, understanding, and tolerance of others." —Adrian Milton, The Dachshund Friendship Club
"The oldest and most satisfactory message in the world: It's good to be who you are." —Eva Ibbotson, author, Which Witch?
Wow, who knew there was such a thing as The Dachsund Friendship Club? Must be good work if you can get it. The DFC is actually going to be holding a Spring Fiesta in Washington Square Park on April 29th this year at noon, where they will be singing "The Dachs Song". You know what? I'm going. That is going to be awesome!
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 9, 2006
THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT
Sony Studios is the outfit behind the upcoming release of the film adaptation of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The book's fictional and central assertion that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, but lived a long married life in France, probably couldn't be more offensive to Christians that believe he died, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. That's pretty much the bedrock belief of Christianity. Yet the book is a huge bestseller and the film is going to star everyone's favorite actor, Tom Hanks.
Like Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, which envisioned Jesus living an alternative life of marital bliss with Mary Magdalen, the movie has ruffled a lot of feathers. Sony has innovatively given a forum to the critics of its own product at The Da Vinci Challenge, inviting a host of scholars to dispute the basis of the film. This is freaking brilliant. Nothing takes the wind out of critics' sails faster than letting them have their say. Plus, it's just plain healthy. Could the film be considered blasphemous? Sure! Here's some space to excoriate us publicly! Let's all agree to disagree. Flame wars definitely beat theaters in flames.
That said, I think an alternative site should be set up to protest Dan Brown's crimes against literature. I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, but I did read the predecessor novel Angels and Demons. It is close to the worst piece of crap I have ever read--a page turner only because one can't wait to uncover another cliche or horrible turn of phrase for one's personal amusement. Filled with declarative sentences describing scenes, Dan Brown apparently never found a metaphor or simile he didn't hate. It's like reading Dick & Jane for the ecclesiastically interested.
In summation, kudos to Sony Studios for giving a voice to its critics. A contentious non-violent society is a healthy society.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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