"Thirteen Hundred Rats"

From the T. C. Boyle story in this week's New Yorker:

When he came back into the room, I thought at first that he’d slipped into some sort of garish jacket or cardigan, but then I saw, with a little jolt of surprise, that he was wearing a snake. Or, that is, a snake was draped over his shoulders, its extremities dangling beyond the length of his arms. “It’s a python,” he said. “Burmese. They get to be twenty-five feet long, though this one’s just a baby.”

I must have said something, but I can’t really recall now what it was. I wasn’t a herpetophobe or anything like that. It was just that a snake wasn’t what we’d had in mind. Snakes didn’t play fetch, didn’t bound into the car panting their joy, didn’t speak when you held a rawhide bone just above shoulder level and twitched it invitingly. As far as I knew, they didn’t do much of anything, except exist. And bite.

“So what do you think?” he said. His voice lacked enthusiasm, as if he were trying to convince himself.

“Nice,” I said.

Page Turners

Last night I saw a very large, sturdy (and presumably IKEA) wooden bookshelf on the curb on my street and had to be talked out of bringing it home to join the ranks of the apartment's sundry adopted furnishings (the strays we currently shelter include 3 chairs, a toaster and a shower curtain).  If I had another bookshelf I would stock it with Asterix & Obelix, Tintin and of course, Amar Chitra Katha comics.  It would be great.  

A Pulitzer: What is it Exactly?

Junot Diaz was on The Colbert Report last night. Today The New York Observer linked to the clip and cross-referenced Diaz's triffid allusion -- a reference which spurred Colbert and Diaz to some (cute) bonding over their shared geekiness. If you missed it last night, check it out now!

A Little Civilization

From Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, which I read (and liked quite a bit) a few weeks ago:

In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable -- which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us.

In the Belly of the Beast

Via New York Magazine's Approval Matrix: Jane Smiley and Curtis Sittenfeld agree to pen Lexus-themed literature for Lexus Magazine. What? Also, 51% of Lexus owners spend more than 30 minutes reading each issue of Lexus Magazine. What?

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Happy 444th Birthday, William Shakespeare!

Pamela Anderson Reads! Unmarketable!

When my buddy Jyothi emailed me this picture of Pamela Anderson reading Unmarketable -- a New Press title by Anne Elizabeth Moore (not your average "beach read," y'know?) -- I was quite amused.  Of course I asked, can I stick it on my blog? She gave me a "YES please do!" but before I could get around to it, someone else posted about it (and took the high road):

Even when Pam Anderson, whose career has traded on the “ditzy blond” stereotype, decides to do something worthwhile with her time — say, for example, digging into an intellectually rigorous exploration of the commercial infiltration and co-optation of marketing into nearly every aspect of independent culture, as Unmarketable offers — entertainment writers and blog readers still relate to her as if she should never try to be anything more than a staple for low-brow punchlines peddled by Comedy Central boys. Let Pammy read and lay off the slut jokes, why don’tcha?

Portrait of a Lady

File under: Black Sheep Alumni. Harvard's Ted Kaczynski can claim he was traumatized by psychological research conducted on him as an undergraduate, and sometime Stanford student Ted Bundy can blame heartbreak, but (according to HoosOnline), UVa's eminently industrious Temeka Rachelle Lewis -- the former English major responsible for scheduling "dates" between Emperor's Club VIP clients and employees -- has only Madison House volunteer experience (and all those sordid literary classics) to blame. "She's just too clean," Lewis's stupefied uncle told the Daily News when he learned of her line of work. "Even when she does the dishes, she puts on gloves. It just don't make any sense." But the UVa English Department website's careers page tells it like it is:

The notion that English majors are unprepared for interesting, productive, lucrative employment is an unfortunate, unfounded myth.

Unaccustomed Earth

She's got a new book out! This from Slate (via my brother):

In her fiction, learning "to not build walls around ourselves" doesn't begin to cover the challenges that await her characters. They are wanderers navigating elusive borders, bumping up against barriers and testing ties, uneasily wondering if they will hold or not. That doesn't prevent Lahiri—or Hema and Kaushik, or plenty of others in these impressive stories—from finding "kinship and beauty in unexpected places." But it inspires a perpetual vigilance and an awareness that, even as the globe shrinks, vast distances will never disappear.

For Love and Money

Alright! Wait no more! This month's issue of the Boston Review is online! Hooray!

Triple Canopy

Not long ago a friend asked me if I knew of any online literary magazines with innovative web design. This is a toughie -- in my experience, literary geekiness and web-programming geekiness seem to be the domains of ... well, different kinds of geeks, I suppose. However, once in a while a site like Triple Canopy pops up to testify that when geeks of different species do join forces, the result is formidable ...

I'm Just Sayin'

If you try to go buy this month's Boston Review at one of these upstanding establishments, you will learn that it won't be in stock til March 29 ... save your pocket money and stay tuned, friends! 

Welcome to the Working Week

I'm finally reading Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End, and it's pretty relentlessly hilarious. For example, though this isn't exactly how I feel about going back to work on a Monday, I have to say it makes a lot of sense:

There was so much unpleasantness in the workaday world. The last thing you ever wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea that part of the weekend had to be dedicated to doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain committed to walk around us. It might not be so bad. They could drop food down to us, or if that was not possible, crumbs from their PowerBars and bags of microwave popcorn would surely end up within arm's length sooner or later. The cleaning crews, needing to vacuum, would inevitably turn us on our sides, preventing bedsores, and we would make little toys out of runs in the carpet, which, in moments of extreme regression, we might suck on for comfort.

Nothing to Unmask

"I like that foolishness is one of your most frequent tags," a loyal reader tells me (to date: thirteen posts). A few words on foolishness from Milan Kundera in The Curtain:

Just what is foolishness? Reason is capable of unmasking the evil hiding treacherously behind a fine lie.  But faced with foolishness, reason is powerless.  There is nothing to unmask. Foolishness does not wear a mask.  It is simply there, innocent.  Sincere.  Naked.  And indefinable.

Things Fall Apart

Tonight! Town Hall, 8PM. A Tribute to Chinua Achebe:

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of his seminal novel Things Fall Apart, PEN American Center presents a tribute to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. On February 26, Chinua Achebe will be joined by Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Michael Cunningham, Edwidge Danticat, Suheir Hammad, Ha Jin, Colum McCann, and Toni Morrison. The evening will also feature a special performance by the Francesca Harper Dance Project with dancers from the Alvin Ailey School.

Rain, Bananas and the Like

Since it's Valentine's Day. Something sweet! This one's called "Stories" by John Edgar Wideman:

A MAN WALKING in the rain eating a banana. Where is he coming from. Where is he going. Why is he eating a banana. How hard is the rain falling. Where did he get the banana. What is the banana's name. How fast is the man walking. Does he mind the rain. What does he have on his mind. Who is asking all these questions. Who is supposed to answer them. Why. Does it matter. How many questions about a man walking in the rain eating a banana are there. Is the previous question one of them or is it another kind of question, not about the man or walking or the rain. If not, what's it a question about. Does each question raise another question. If so, what's the point. If not, what will the final question be. Does the man know any of the answers. Does he enjoy bananas. Walking in the rain. Can the man feel the weight of eyes on him, the weight of questions. Why does the banana's bright yellow seem the only color, the last possible color remaining in a gray world with a gray scrim of rain turning everything grayer. I know question after question after question. The only answer I know is this: all the stories I could make from this man walking in the rain eating banana would be sad, unless I'm behind a window with you looking out at him.

Big Numbers

From The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol 1 on the number seven:

Seven is the largest prime number between zero and ten. Out of all the numbers, the very largest primes are still unknown. Still, every year, the very largest prime is larger. Euclid proved the number of primes to be infinite, but the infinity of primes may be slightly smaller than the infinity of the rest of the numbers. It is here, exactly at this point, that my ability to comprehend begins to fail.

Wandering Light

Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac posted a nice tribute to birthday girl Virginia Woolf (she was born on January 25, 1882) citing this passage of hers:

We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying ... what we think, then how little we are able to convey! The phantom is through the mind and out of the window before we can lay salt on its tail, or slowly sinking and returning to the profound darkness which it has lit up momentarily with a wandering light.

A Real Shithole?

Something I had not considered about the city's new public toilets: Their rate of 25 cents for 15 minutes comes to $24/day and $720/month. Which is a total steal in this town! Especially for quarters The New York Times values at "more than $100,000" and calls "very spacious" (that's right, "one cannot touch the side walls with arms outstretched")! Still not convinced?

There are two architectural flourishes, both on the roof: a small pyramid of glass, like a little model of the Louvre, and an anachronistic metal stovepipe, reminiscent of a cozy shanty or an old outhouse with a crescent moon carved into the door.

A cozy little Louvre-shanty! This amusing video completely moves in on the idea (happily neglecting the fine print 15 minute time limit for restroom habitation). It's like From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler all growed up and adapted for YouTube!

Eat, Sleep, Blog. Make Pasta?

I generally don't read on the subway to and from work for several reasons: My commute is relatively short, my hands are generally full (coffee, heels, lunch), and I have been known to miss my stop while reading. But I very much enjoy seeing what other people are reading (a girl can only study MTA posters so long). Today, for example, I was adjacent to not one, but two Atonement-readers. Also in close vicinity was the most ubiquitous subway-book of them all -- #1 on Goodreads' most read list for 2007 -- Eat, Pray, Love. As much as I like the title's pithy imperative, Lizzie Skurnick's splendidly useful review of this book forever cured me of all curiosity about its contents ages ago:

A sad truth for those of you out there seeking greater ones: Nothing is more boring than your epiphanies. (Even worse, sojourners–the more particular they are to you, the more they sound exactly like everyone else’s.) Such is the problem with Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey through the particulars of her digestive, spiritual and moral humors–located, for your corporeal information, in the regions of Italy, India and Indonesia, respectively. It’s a bit of a punt to say the book is self-aggrandizing–how could a book focused on one’s spiritual well-being not be?–but it’s the grand Richard Bachian strokes that provoke the reader beyond speech: “Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely.” (Simply put.) However, we’re a girl! Fish-in-barrel elements aside, of course we loved that someone would eat pasta, meditate and tool around Indonesia for a year to get over a broken heart. There’s a lot to be said for pasta in general.