This is how it goes when you’re a person of the 20th Century
ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO SQUINT
If the New York Times disappears, will the world survive? DAVID BLUM ponders a future without ink stains.
Gay Talese won’t go online, bless his ornery old-fashioned soul. He answers his phone like people used to (he’s listed in the phone book and it’s a land line, remember those? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!) and says “Hello?” and if you have a request he’ll ask you to please fax it to him, because, yes, Gay has progressed into the modern 
era far enough to own a fax machine, he doesn’t mind that particular whirring contraption, probably because it involves paper and the ringing of a phone…it’s like a Dixie cup and a string, only longer, looser, lighter than air, the connection invisible yet somehow tangible. He rises every morning and paws through the newspaper with the diligence of an obedient journalism student and checks his mailbox for letters with stamps on them (and there will be letters; people write to Gay Talese; I did when I was a young starry-eyed reporter; wouldn’t you if you were?) and puts on an elegant Italian suit and, often, a wide-brimmed hat to match. He walks the streets of his Upper East Side neighborhood with the gait of a go-getting reporter, because he still is one, and he presses his opinions on people with the passion of a high-school debate team captain, only with more grace, more wit, more aplomb. Yes, the man has aplomb.
The Need For Cultural Gatekeepers (According to Salon)
Who killed the literary critic?
In the age of blogging, great critics appear to be on life support. Salon’s book reviewers discuss snobbery, how to make criticism fun and the need for cultural gatekeepers.
By Louis Bayard and Laura Miller
Read More: Books, Laura Miller, Newspapers, Criticism, Novels, Books Features, Bloggers
May. 22, 2008 | Has the role of the professional critic become obsolete in an age of book clubs, celebrity endorsements and blogs? A new book, “The Death of the Critic,” says no, and argues that there are still reasons to regard some opinions as better than others. We asked Salon’s own book reviewers, Louis Bayard and Laura Miller, to consider its case.
Louis Bayard: The signs are ominous, Laura. Book reviews are closing shop or drastically scaling back inventory. Film critics at newspapers all over America are getting tossed on their ears. TV reviewers are heard no more in the land. All the indicators suggest that America’s critics are becoming an increasingly endangered species.
Or maybe something a little more than endangered, judging from the title that’s just come across our desks: “The Death of the Critic.” Ronan McDonald, the author, is a lecturer in English and American studies at Britain’s University of Reading, and he’s particularly exercised by what he sees as the loss of the “public critic,” someone with “the authority to shape public taste.” It’s only in the final chapter that the mystery behind the critic’s disappearance is solved. The culprit is none other than … cultural studies! (With a healthy assist from poststructuralism.) By treating literature as an impersonal text from which any manner of political meaning can be wrung, cultural studies professors have robbed criticism of its proper evaluative function — the right to say this is good, this isn’t, and here’s why.
So, Laura, it seems that, if we aren’t quite dead, we critics are on something like life support.
James Frey’s BRIGHT SHINY MORNING Hits NYT Bestseller List
Frey Number 9 on Times Bestseller List; First Week Sales at Around 14,000
The numbers are in: James Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning, published by the flagship imprint of HarperCollins on May 13th, sold 14,343 copies in its first week, putting it at number nine on the New York Times Bestseller List. (It should be noted BookScan only tracks 70% of total sales.)
We hear HarperCollins is pleased.
SENTENCES and THE BOOK BENCH
Harpers and The New Yorker Both Have New Book Blogs
Because heaven knows the world needs more book blogs, the New Yorker now has a blog called The Book Bench, named after their office’s discarded-book pile (pictured). And Harpers now has Sentences. The latter, so far, is pretty super—entirely the work of contributing editor Wyatt Mason, it features long, discursive entries about recent reading and original reporting about Jonathan Franzen‘s recent public chat with James Wood at Harvard. The Book Bench, so far, has long linkdumps and posts about recent lit news with punny headlines like “A Pose for Emily [Dickinson]” and “Pain in the Library.” There’s also an odd, snobby post entitled “Bookspotting” that makes fun of an overheard conversation between an “Edie Falco look-alike” and a friend in a fancy Tribeca restaurant, about how reading books on tape are easier than reading “all that text.”
DASSdance presents Poor Man’s Boogie
DASSdance boogyin’ to aid underprivileged kids
DASSdance presents Poor Man’s Boogie
Thurs-Fri May 22-23, 2008, 8pm
37 Arts – Baryshnikov Arts Center
Howard Gilman Performance Space, 4th Floor
New York, New York 10018
$15 General Admission
www.paperbrowntickets.com/event/33409
Poor Man’s Boogie is Daniel Wilkins’ sixth full-length premiere for his athletic and no-holds-barred company of eight dancers. Motivated by his personal experiences as an artist struggling with the harsh reality of continual financial instability, Wilkins’ newest project, Poor Man’s Boogie takes on poverty and isn’t afraid to take its cause out into the real world.
University Settlement will host a special presentation of Poor Man’s Boogie for participants of The Beacon, the Settlement’s free after-school program for children and teens providing arts classes, sports, and tutoring. 
In addition, DASS will collect donations during its performances at Baryshnikov Arts Center on behalf of the Performance Project at the University Settlement. The Performance Project brings innovative performing arts to the immigrant-heavy and low-income families of the Lower East Side at an affordable price.
Poor Man’s Boogie is a work that confronts the confinement of the lower class across the rural and urban landscapes of America. Hardship and struggle mingle with and motivate desperate schemes to climb the social ladder. Dependency and lack of social support are frictions exploding in outbursts of resentment and abuse. Wilkins’ treatment of poverty is unashamedly irreverent, showing a milieu of recognizable characters on the edge of extreme situations incurred from a relentless cycle of hunger, powerlessness, and violence. Using a multi-media approach to immerse its audience in this world, the work samples from music that has been the creative fruit of such struggles throughout American history, such as jazz, blues, and hip-hop. It also incorporates footage of the New York subway and rural homesteads of Eastern Washington to assist this compelling story.
A short Q&A with Artistic Director Daniel Wilkins and company dancers will follow each performance.
Warning: Poor Man’s Boogie contains adult language, mild adult content, and intense situations that may not be suitable for some children.
Fighting Over Cocks Fighting
from the AP via SiliconValley.com
Magazine in cockfight dispute agrees to stay off Amazon
Article Launched: 05/21/2008 07:29:51 AM PDT
SEATTLE – A magazine that the Humane Society of the United States says promotes cockfighting has agreed to ask Amazon.com to stop selling its publication online.
In the lawsuit, the Humane Society accused the online retailer of violating federal animal cruelty laws by selling The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior, which the group described as cockfighting magazines.
Marburger Publishing Co., which publishes The Gamecock, agreed to settle with the Humane Society because it was a way to remove itself from the case, but the publication does not promote cockfighting or violate a federal ban on the bloody sport, said attorney Ali Beydoun of the law firm Carr Maloney.
A recent federal law added felony-level penalties for activities promoting or encouraging animal fighting. The Animal Fighting Prohibition Act of 2007 also made it a felony to knowingly sponsor or exhibit an animal fight, or to buy, sell or transport knives, gaffs and other weapons used in cockfighting.
Cockfighting is illegal in every state except Louisiana, where a legislative ban goes into effect in August.
Lovvorn called The Gamecock “the oldest and best-known cockfighting magazine in the United States.”
Beydoun described the magazine as appealing to “chicken aficionados,” focusing on animal care and stories about people who raise chickens and game birds.
“It’s a hard magazine to come by. It’s not as available as People magazine or Vanity Fair,” he said.
About the only places a chicken lover could buy the publication are at an animal feed store or via Amazon, where the publication was offered by a magazine distributor, not the publisher, said Barry A. Fisher, of the Los Angeles law firm Fleishman & Fisher, which also represents Marburger Publishing.
Fisher said the lawsuit isn’t really about The Gamecock or The Feathered Warrior.
“Their real target is Amazon,” he said.
Boneheads With Occasionally Lethal Weapons
‘Boneheads’ shoot each other with Tasers in fight over wheel clamp
Harvey Epstein, a restaurateur, and Casey Dane, a security supervisor, gave each other a simultaneous 50,000-volt jolt after an argument over the clamping of Epstein’s van spiralled out of control.
Colorado state police said neither man needed medical attention, but Epstein was arrested on suspicion of menacing and using a stun gun.
The incident happened on Saturday night outside Mamacita’s Restaurant in Boulder, Colorado after a van parked behind Epstein’s restaurant was clamped by a guard working for a security firm of which Dane is a supervisor.
Dane said Epstein, whose mother was with him, had tried to remove the clamp with bolt cutters and threatened a guard that he would “kick his ass” while holding a pair of bolt cutters above the guard’s head.
The 36-year-old restaurateur denied this, saying it all started when Dane put his hand on a holstered pistol and threatened to shoot him.
He claimed to have only drawn his Taser and fired after Dane aimed his own Taser at his mother’s face.
“(The guard) pointed a stun gun at my mother’s face and I immediately responded with my personal Taser,” Epstein told his local paper, the Camera, on Sunday evening within an hour of being released from Boulder county jail. “We shot each other at the same moment.”
Dane told police he reached for his Taser after Epstein refused to drop the bolt cutters, and only pointed the Taser at the woman after she picked up her son’s stun gun, which still had its probes buried in his skin.
Pat Wyton, a Boulder police sergeant, told the paper: “It was just kind of a bonehead deal. They shot each other.
“The security guard was in the right – he felt threatened.”
Historic West Adams Mural Plea To Gangs & Taggers
WEST ADAMS: Nothing like politely asking. This mural going up on Adams also had another note, asking bloggers not to post any photos of the artwork itself on the web (until its finished). Fair enough. So this shot only shows the note–the mural is to the right. [Curbed Staff]
Observer Review: Bright, Shiny and Long
Bright, Shiny and Long
James Frey’s first novel lulls L.A. into familiar territory
BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
By James Frey
Harper, 501 pages, $26.95
I WASN’T FAR INTO James Frey’s debut novel, Bright Shiny Morning—around page 50 of 501—when I felt a sense of déjà vu. The words weren’t stolen, but the story suddenly seemed so familiar.
This particular Carveresque passage described a married couple, Tammy and Carl, who live in a trailer park in the Pacific Palisades. They’d gotten pregnant young and come west from Oklahoma, dreaming of living near the beach. They had a bunch of kids who all grew up to be successful, but Tammy and Carl stayed in their trailer, sharing views of Malibu that others paid millions for. “Like hundreds of thousands of people a year,” writes Mr. Frey, “[they] came to Los Angeles to make their dreams come true. Sometimes it happens.”
A song started looping in my head: “Into the Great Wide Open,” by Tom Petty. (It’s a song about a couple in L.A.—aren’t all Tom Petty songs about L.A.?—trying to make their dreams come true.) Later, at Mr. Frey’s mention of Reseda, a district in the San Fernando Valley, Mr. Petty’s “Free Fallin’” took over (“It’s a long day, living in Reseda/ There’s a freeway, runnin’ through the yard.”)
That was it: James Frey’s book is one very long Tom Petty song.
And like a Tom Petty song—which is quite repetitive and predictable but which also sticks in your head in such a way that it becomes inextricably linked to some memory from your teens or 20s, of driving to Ocean City or to a football game or to a really good party—Mr. Frey’s book will stick with you, too.
BRIGHT SHINY MORNING ISN’T a great book, though it is, as Sara Nelson wrote in Publisher’s Weekly, “un-put-downable.” Mr. Frey’s other books—the scandal-making memoir A Million Little Pieces (2003) and the quite obviously embellished follow-up, My Friend Leonard (2005)—were similarly addictive. His books are like crappy movies on a Sunday afternoon; you think, well, if I don’t like it, I don’t have to watch it. But then, you don’t really have anything else to do, and you get hooked—after 20 minutes, you have to know what happens to the druggie teenager—and, really, it’s only a few hours of your life. (Despite the length, the novel only takes an afternoon to read. More on that shortly.)
Still, Bright Shiny Morning isn’t very pleasurable. As always, Mr. Frey is obsessed with brutality, and few in his sprawling book escape to safety. There are four main stories: a superfamous Hollywood couple with a secret (their marriage is a sham—he’s gay and she’s bisexual); a young couple from Ohio escaping abusive families; a homeless man in Venice living an ethical, if drunk, life; and a young, smart Mexican-American woman working for an old, tyrannical white lady in Pasadena. All of these stories are crazy with violence.
Of course, that’s what makes the book a page-turner: Will Old Joe live after being assaulted by a bunch of meth heads? Will Dylan come back after being abducted by a biker gang? Will Amberton really order his lover’s mother to be killed? We have to know the answers to these questions, and Mr. Frey’s minimalist style is lighter than the breeze. At the same time, the stories are so over-the-top, the violence so grotesque, that it’s hard to take any of it very seriously. Which is unfortunate: Mr. Frey doesn’t intend for his novel to be read as a satire but rather as a hyper-realistic, this-is-the-way-it-is-out-there-motherfucker portrait of Los Angeles. He really believes that the world is relentlessly ugly. It isn’t.
BACK TO TOM PETTY, WHO tends to strike a more melancholy note in his odes to L.A. than Mr. Frey. Both trade almost entirely in stereotypes—that’s why Bright Shiny Morningfeels so rote.
Of course the Mexican-American woman gets sidetracked from going to college and has to work as a housekeeper—and for a woman of particular cruelty and fierce physical strength. And of course the young couple from Ohio gets pregnant. Of course the big movie star is secretly gay. And of course the homeless guy has a heart of gold. These characters are supposed to be revelatory in some way, their stories tragic and shocking. But they’re just what we’ve heard a million times before. Girl moves to Hollywood to be an actress; girl ends up in porn. Boy moves to Hollywood to break into TV; boy ends up a junkie.
Mr. Frey writes like he’s sharing these stories for the first time. In a way, it’s charming, and the book’s insistence on its own importance is part of what keeps you reading. You can’t shake the hope that Mr. Frey will surprise you. But he doesn’t. Every story turns out just as you expect.
SPRINKLED AMONG THE four main stories and countless other mini-profiles of unnamed, central-casting sorts of characters are facts about the county of Los Angeles. In the beginning, full pages sport three or four lines of text noting some fact about the area (all that white space is one reason why the book is such a snap to read); later, Mr. Frey gets more ambitious, writing long descriptive passages about various neighborhoods.
Although he slaps a disclaimer upfront (“Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable”), these “fact” passages are a real problem. Yes, it’s a novel, and in a novel—as Mr. Frey was reminded time and again after the controversy over A Million Little Pieces—you can make stuff up. But not really—not if your book is clearly meant to be a sweeping history of a certain place. And given Mr. Frey’s track record, there are obvious questions looming: How accurate are these “fun facts,” as he calls them? What are his sources? It doesn’t help that long passages read just like Wikipedia entries.
Bright Shiny Morning isn’t the disaster some Frey-haters probably hoped for, but it’s not special, either. A supposedly honest look at the nastiness of human nature, written without punctuation (though there’s more than you’d think!) and a fake urgency that should lead somewhere new, the novel merely manipulates you into doing exactly what James Frey wants. He leads you into the hills high above Hollywood, shows you the most spectacular view of the hideousness that is Los Angeles, and then abandons you to make the only choice you can: to jump.
Hillary Frey (no relation) edits the culture pages of The Observer. She can be reached at hfrey@observer.com.
Bright Shiny Softballs
LAT Launches Some Bright, Shiny Softballs at James Frey
James Frey has already received a public caning. So (unless we get some comped ring-side seats) we don’t need to see another one. But still, the LAT piece on the front page acts as if “Pieces” was The Blair Witch Project and more of a hoax than a fabrication.
Is it because his new book is celebrating LA in literature and since Charles Bukowski isn’t around anymore we’ve been deprived of that?
From LAT:
“I’m definitely more humble, I’m definitely more contained, I’m definitely living a quieter life,” Frey said, popping one of many pieces of nicotine gum. “I’m just really grateful to have a book coming out. It’s similar to ‘A Million Little Pieces’ — I was just so excited to have a book coming out. It’s awesome. I write about L.A. as the city of dreams, and this is another dream . . .
New UK Site
My UK Publisher just put up a new site. Check it out if you have time. This one isn’t going anywhere, now you just have an option.
More Doodles For A Good Cause
Here’s a drawing by actress Anne Hathaway, accompanied by a catchy little poem.
Credits: Fevelo for News Published: 05/21/2008 04:00:00
[ click to view full slideshow at NYDailyNews.com ]
[ click here to view James Frey’s Doodle ]
[ click here to view a list of all the celebrities who doodled this year ]
New Carnival Ride for The Simpsons Opens At Universal Studios
Sadly, Connie Cassidy of Ireland doesn’t measure up to the 40-inch height requirement to enter the new Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Orlando.
Suicide By Tide In The Most High-Stress Society In The World
‘Detergent Suicide’: Deadly Fad Rattles Japan
Dangerous ‘Gas Suicide’ Trend Puts Bystanders at Risk
The volunteer staff at the Suicide Prevention Center in Tokyo spent this year’s “golden week” holidays in early May taking calls from those who wanted to kill themselves.
Japanese health officials note a disturbing increase in “gas suicides.”
(Getty Images)
“We set up a special hot line during golden week this year,” said Yuzou Kato, the director of the center, referring to the popular annual bash of four national holidays packed into a single week. “We wanted to put a stop to the increasing number of gas suicides, which have been spreading all over Japan.”
The Japanese epidemic of suicides has become particularly lethal in the last year with the introduction of a new method: mixing store-bought detergents and chemicals to create toxic hydrogen sulfide gas. The gas almost always kills and sometimes the victims of the poisonous fumes are passers-by or rescue personnel.
Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 145 such suicide cases have been reported in the last few months, killing 136 and injuring 188 others. Kato said many callers had started to talk about this gas method in the last year.
Japan already has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The number of suicides reached 30,000 in 1998 and has not gone below that number for nine consecutive years.
James Frey’s Nightmare Morphs into a Calif. Dream
James Frey’s Nightmare Morphs into a Calif. Dream
Listen Now [9 min 0 sec]
Day to Day, May 20, 2008 ·Fabricator, fraud and fake — author James Frey tends to inspire F-words with ferocity. All because of what he describes as a “a really, really bad year at work.”
“Frankly at this point, I don’t think it matters,” Frey shrugs two years later in an interview with NPR’s Madeleine Brand. “A Million Little Pieces is a book and people are either going to read it and enjoy it, or not. I feel like I’ve acknowledged the mistakes I’ve made and I’ve learned from them and I’ve moved on.”
As he’s moved on, he’s parted ways with his troublesome friend, “fact.” His new book,Bright Shiny Morning, a work of fiction, begins with the inscription, “Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable.”
Problems with Accuracy and Reliability
Frey’s well-documented “bad year” began when entertainment Web site The Smoking Gun went searching for his mug shot and stumbled on a number of inaccuracies in his memoir, A Million Little Pieces.
Less than a month later, Oprah — the woman who had helped turn him into a best-selling author — was confronting him on national television about specific details in his book. In it, Frey vividly recounts his drug and alcohol addiction, including 87 days in jail. Under Oprah’s public scrutiny, however, he sheepishly clarified that it was actually just a few hours. The live audience punctuated the grillfest with hisses and boos. And that was just Chapter One.
Frey has attempted to rebuild himself against a backdrop of Los Angeles. He calls his new novel “a love letter that acknowledges the city has its faults and has things that aren’t great, but it’s still a love letter.”
Frey follows four main narratives and jumps in and out of the lives of dozens of characters. He calls his main characters “Los Angeles archetypes.” Critics call them stereotypes: a Mexican American maid, a homeless beach bum, a handsome movie star and a newly arrived couple from small-town America. All are trying to live out their Los Angeles dreams amid gridlock, gangs, poverty and racism.
Frey sold the idea for Bright Shiny Morning before the memoir controversy, but his contract was canceled. He decided to follow through with the book idea, but he says what happened in 2006 influenced the way it was written.
“It did make me value hope more, the idea of dreams more. I’ve had dreams come true; I’ve had dreams explode … and I think L.A. is a symbol of it around the world,” he says. “When people think of L.A., they think, that’s where you go! And that’s whether your dream is international superstardom or your dream is a green card and a job.”
Frey could not entirely resist the allure of fact. Between chapters, he employs little doses of L.A. history as a palate cleanser. According to Frey, his publisher “freaked out,” making him write a 38-page report sourcing every fact. Frey calls it “the most heavily vetted novel, maybe, in history.”
Right now, however, Bright Shiny Morning is in the top 40 on Amazon, making “fiction” an F-word that Frey can feel good about.
Sweet Home Alabamagrad
from Dr. Jack Wheeler’s TO THE POINT
| ROCKING RUSSKIES |  |
 |
| Written by To The Point News
Prepare yourself for this one – maybe with a Stoli martini or two. Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army had an official choir composed of male soldiers and musicians. It still exists. The Red Army Choir performs throughout Russia to this day. Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which – to the screaming applause of Russkie teen-agers – they got the Red Army Choir to join them on stage for a performance of “Sweet Home Alabama.” In English. You couldn’t make this up. We’re talking seriously off the wall here. Better have that Stoli ready when you watch it: |
LA Times: James Frey Rises From The Ashes
James Frey rises from the ashes
Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
Author James Frey is promoting the release of his latest novel “Bright, Shiny Morning,” a book about life in Los Angeles.
He’s trying to step clear of ‘A Million Little Pieces’ as he publicizes his novel.
JAMES FREY was back in his old neighborhood, strolling happily along the Venice boardwalk, enjoying a sunny day in a T-shirt and aviator shades as he passed tattoo shops and a man who was selling what he claimed to be “philosophy.” It doesn’t get any better than this, Frey’s body language seemed to say.
“This,” Frey, 38, said. “This doesn’t exist in New York. This weather — it’s like this in Venice all year. Never that hot here because of the ocean. I mean, dude, every day — all year.”
That’s when he bumped into an old neighbor, who still lives across from the house where Frey wrote the 2003 book, “A Million Little Pieces.”
“Jesus! I thought you won the Nobel Prize for literature!” shouted Marvin Klotz, a retired English professor, hanging out on a bench with some friends. He’d seen all the recent press. “Newsweek! Time! Vanity Fair!”
“Washington Post, I got a good one,” said Frey, who talks through his nose with a bored-guy flatness.
Frey could have been just another local boy made good. Then Klotz, a dead ringer for Jerry Garcia and Albert Einstein, introduced the writer to another friend as “the disgraced James Frey!”
“The most notorious author in America,” Frey offered, smiling his crooked smile.
They all cracked up, laughing in the seaside sun.
There was a time, not too long ago, when Frey’s travails were no laughing matter. “A Million Little Pieces” became a critical hit and a huge bestseller. Bret Easton Ellis called it “a heartbreaking memoir defined by its youthful tone and poetic honesty”; Pat Conroy dubbed it “The ‘War and Peace’ of addiction.”
“If I can get myself a set of drums, I’ll play at the Troub”
a video short by Wil Robinson of Greg Handbeck,
25 year resident of Hollywood who’s “doin’ all right”
After the public tongue-lashing…
Will You Read the New James Frey Book?
Soon after Oprah chose James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces for her book club, the memoir became a bestseller. But then it was revealed that Frey had exaggerated and even made up pivotal plot elements and characters in his “memoir.” Not only was Frey humiliated in the publishing world, but after Oprah dragged him onto her couch for a difficult-to-watch public tongue lashing, many figured the man would never work again.
Well, he did work again. Frey wrote a novel called Bright Shiny Morning (on bookshelves today) that was given a glowing review by the New York Times in which the reviewer wrote, “He got another chance. Look what he did with it. He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. No more lying, no more melodrama, still run-on sentences still funny punctuation but so what. He became a furiously good storyteller this time.”
That is the kind of review that is hard to come by for any author, much less one whose career hit rock bottom in a swirl of controversy and who managed to enrage the queen of book clubs. I have to say I’m intrigued by this excellent review.
How do you feel about checking out a new book by James Frey?
Will You Read the New James Frey Book?
Thief In The Temple
Thief in the CNN mailroom!
It appears that the CNN mailroom has an entrepreneur who, rather than schlep stolen books down to the Strand bookstore for some cold hard cash, is selling them on eBay. This just came in through the Galleycat tipwire:
This was sent out by Brian Sack, author of In the Event of My Untimely Demise via the book’s Facebook page. It’s funny but definitely must be maddening from an author’s standpoint at the same time: “I received an email from someone who bought IN THE EVENT OF MY UNTIMELY DEMISE from a third party vendor on Amazon. He was curious why his new book was signed with a note to a guy named Evan. First I thought I was being pranked. How could someone buy my book on Amazon and receive a copy that I’d personally signed and mailed to Evan, a producer at CNN? Too weird. But I emailed Evan – and he said he’d never received the book. Hmm. We did a little Sherlock Holmesing and came to realize that someone in the TimeWarner/CNN mailroom is actually stealing books that arrive in the mail and re-selling them on Amazon. Isn’t that great? They didn’t bother to open the book and notice that I’d signed it to someone. Now Evan’s working hard to find the thief and teach him or her a valuable lesson in sudden occupational reassignment.”
This certainly makes a good argument to follow up on books that you send out.
Solid Action Love Partner
a silent short by Walter Williams
Transcript from WaPo Chat with James Frey
read full transcript at the WashingtonPost’s Book World
Book World: ‘Bright Shiny Morning’
Controversial Memoirist Turns to Fiction
James Frey
Author
Tuesday, May 20, 2008; 3:00 PM
A transcript follows.
Join Book World Live each Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET for a discussion based on a story or review in each Sunday’s Book World section.
____________________
James Frey: Hi, this is James Frey. I’m happy to be here today with you and the Washington Post. Thanks to the Post for having me and you for checking this out. Hope you have fun, have a good day.
_______________________
Los Angeles, Calif.: Good morning and thanks for taking my question. I’m a native Angeleno, but also interested in New York City. I’m wondering how you would compare the two cities since you lived in LA and now live in New York. What would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Do you prefer one over the other?
Thanks.
James Frey: I love both cities. They are totally different. Everything is centralized in NY, nothing in LA. The weather stinks in NY, great in LA. One is much faster than the other. I could live or be happy in either.
_______________________
W. Orange, N.J.: Bright Shiny Morning = Edgar Lee Masters + John Dos Passos + Nathanael West. Fair enough?
James Frey: I’ll certainly take it. Thank you very much.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: I am so looking forward to reading your book. I truly enjoyed “A Million Little Pieces” and “My Friend Leonard.” I am sure a lot of thought and editing goes into the process, but it seems so “stream of consciousness.” How much of it actually is your stream of consciousness and how much is a “writing style?”
James Frey: Thank you.
The books are written very deliberately. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes not. Either way, I try to be very careful about the words and the punctuation, or lack thereof. I also never really read my own writing, so I try to make it perfect the first time through.
_______________________
Memphis, Tenn.: James, how are you enjoying your reading tour so far?
James Frey: I’m having a ball on my tour. The events in NY, LA and SF were awesome. It’s great to be out there again, I feel very lucky to be doing it.
_______________________
New York, N.Y.: Why would anyone want to read anything this fraud has to write? I only wish he left our good city and crawled under the rock from where he came.
James Frey: I hope we meet someday so I can shake your hand and give you a big hug.
It’s Not Fair That Only Women Have Cleavage
James Frey Pisses Off Oprah And Lives to Write Again
James Frey Pisses Off Oprah And Lives to Write Again
James Frey has a new book out. Bright Shiny Morning. After the controversy with his ‘memoir’, A Million Little Pieces, Frey decided to write another book – a novel, this time. His last book should have been called a novel too. So what? It’s a good book isn’t it? And more important from a business perspective, it sold lots of copies, right? So who cares what you call it?
That said, Frey could have avoided all the bad press and basked in the glory of a brilliant manuscript born out of his experience but exaggerated for literary effect – you know a novel.
Modern memoir is filled with all kinds of content that may or may not be 100% accurate, depending on who you ask. It’s the nature of the genre. Surely Oprah was aware of that as she read through Frey’s unconventional text.
So why the anger? Maybe because Frey lied to Oprah’s face. He misrepresented himself. The book was his to write as he wished, but to sit across from the most powerful woman in publishing and fail to mention that some of the specific passages the two of you were discussing didn’t actually happen, not exactly how you wrote about them – that was a bad choice.
But we’ll never know just whose choice that was. Was it Frey’s? The producer who wanted to deliver the edgiest guest? The publishers who wanted to give this incredible tale more credibility? Or a cluster of all these conspiring to create infamy. Literature does not occur in a vacuum. There is a huge marketing monster to feed.
It doesn’t matter whose idea it was because Frey complied. He went along with it and faced the consequences. And then he sat back down and wrote again. Newsflash: writers make things up. And often, it’s good for business.
So what do you think, will Oprah give him another chance?
Civil Disobedience in San Francisco
snipped from THE SNITCH at the San Francisco Weekly
James Frey Protest: Mace, Hells Angels, and Leafleting
Mon May 19, 2008 at 05:30:00 AM
Frel with mace
It’s Friday evening and I’m standing outside Slim’s with Jan Frel, his wife, Hadley, a can of mace and a stack of papers. The papers are stapled copies of John Dolan’s essay “Whose Fault Is Frey?” a document that lambastes author James Frey, whose memoir of drug addiction and subsequent recovery, A Million Little Pieces, was exposed as a partial fabrication after it took the best-sellers lists by storm. Frel is an editor at progressive Web site Alternet.org, and the founder of Down With Frey, an organization that consists of himself, his wife and a blog where one can vote on whether or not Frey is a “hack writer,” a “sad sack” or an “abomination.” Inside Slim’s, a metal band is gearing up to play a set before Frey takes the stage to read an excerpt from his new book, Bright Shiny Morning, which will be sold in the fiction section and garnered a glowing review from the New York Times.
Right now they’re talking strategy.
Hadley and Frel
Frel thinks that maybe Hadley should take the mace into the club, as she’s less likely to get the thorough search that a guy would be subjected to. They had read on Gawker that the Hells Angels might be in attendance to guard the author and Down With Frey is toting the mace for protection in the event of a scuffle. (Later in the night, someone does point out a formidable, broad-shouldered man who is rumored to be the former head of the New York Hells Angels and Frey’s bodyguard.)
Frel issued a press release prior to his protest, which read in part, “James Frey is a disgrace, a sham, a fraud and a plagiarizer…He peddles the worst lies about society: that drugs are bad and the cause of addicts’ problems, and that people can change. While most authors make a straight bee-line for the exit doors after being revealed as frauds, Frey is shamelessly sticking around, peddling his latest trash novel.”
I ask Hadley, who’s a writer, if she feels as strongly about Frey as her husband does.
“Yes,” she says firmly, then adds, “But this was his idea.”
We’re admitted to the venue without incident and stand in the middle of the largely unoccupied floor. Frey’s reading in New York pulled a crowd of hundreds, but it’s a rare hot day in San Francisco so there’s only a crowd of about sixty people at Slim’s today.
There seems to be some confusion about what the next step will be.
“I guess we should wait until he starts reading, right?” Frel asks.
But it turns out that waiting isn’t an option. Frey has been standing off near the edge of the bar, eying us and conversing with some people grouped around him. He crosses the floor and now we’re all standing there with Frey and an extremely angry-looking guy with black hair and tattoos.
“Hey, you’re here!” Frel exclaims, sounding genuinely excited and friendly.
Frey is wearing an unassuming white T-shirt, glasses, and an LA Dodgers baseball hat.
“I heard you had some essays; I was thinking of reading them out loud on stage,” Frey returns.
Frel and Frey
It’s obvious that Frel has thought out ahead of time what he would like to say to the author’s face, but now that it’s really happening, things just seem awkward. He tells Frey that he’s a disgrace, that he’s a fraud, and that his continuing popularity is symptomatic of the attitude that allows George Bush to retain office after committing war crimes. Frey is nodding in response to this and tells Frel that he’s entitled to his opinion. The whole time, Black Hair Tattooed Guy, a member of the opening band, 3rdrail, is at Frey’s side, mad-dogging Frel, fists clenched. The confrontation sputters out, and Frey walks away.
“You mess any shit up….” Black Hair Tattoed Guy hisses into Frel’s face.
“And what?” Frel asks.
“Guess!” BHTG barks, and turns heel.
Unfortunately, we never get to find out what fate lies in store for Frel should he continue his campaign against literary fraud, as he and Suter are unceremoniously ejected from the club by a man in a black leather vest and white ball cap. There’s a short-lived smattering of clapping from bystanders.
Frel and Hadley being asked to leave
I’m ready to follow them outside but first I talk to Frey. What does he think of Frel’s protest?
“I think it’s awesome!” He grins, but quickly adds that they should be conducting their protest outside, as they’re being disruptive.
Outside, Frel is trying to hand copies of the essay to people who are standing in line. Confused, some accept the pieces of paper. Bouncers quickly descend on those with leaflets and confiscate them.
“We can’t have a bunch of paper in the club,” one bouncer tells Frel.
One woman who still has her essay gets out of line and hands it back. “I don’t want to stand here and read this,” she mumbles.
The bouncers then tell Frel and Hadley they have to stand at the end of the street if they want to keep handing out the papers.
Frel attempting to hand out essays
Frel printed about thirty essays and says he’s handed out ten. Well, maybe eleven if you count the one that was handed back. Frel chews Skoal, and he’s got a paper cup jammed in the front pocket of shirt now, so that he can deposit his spit into it. I ask him if he thinks his protest was a success.
“No,” he says. “Frey still has sucker fans showing up to talk to him.”
Hadley adds, “It was bad atmosphere for a protest.”
“That’s the problem with writers,” Frel says cryptically.
“It was such a sad little protest!” says Hadley.
“Well, what did you expect?” asks Frel. “Throngs? Hundreds?”
They decide to deposit the remaining essays in a convenience store across the street and go grab a bite to eat. They’re calling it a night.
I get back in line to be re-searched by the bouncers and re-admitted so I can get a drink. The bouncer tells me that, obviously, I can’t have anything on my person that Down With Frey may have given me, which I do. I tell her that I need the stapled essay because I’m a journalist and she looks doubtful. I ask her if I can just keep the last page, since I wrote some notes on the back of it. She consents, tearing off the first two pages and handing the last one back to me.
Frey’s reading goes off without a hitch. Over music provided by 3rdrail, he reads a passage about a woman purchasing a gun after being raped. Photographs by Terry Richardson of glowering thugs and guns are projected on a screen behind him. Frey opens the floor to questions afterwards and one person asks how he really feels about Oprah. Nobody mentions the protest. It’s a thing of the past, just like Frey’s public undoing, and now fans are happily lining up to chat with the author and get their books signed. –Andy Wright
Frel and Hadley leaving
James Frey Discusses The Writing of BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
I Am From, Jekyll & Hyde
Winning poems from the Jackson Heights Poetry Festival
Friday, May 9th 2008, 5:44 PM
The two poems below were chosen from more than 100 entries from Queens middle- and high school students, and will be performed by their authors at the Jackson Heights Poetry Festival next Saturday.
Jekyll & Hyde
by Royah Nunez
Martin Luther High School
What am I really on the inside. Am I the player or will I sit on the sidelines. What are my guidelines, the rules and regulations. Will I stay calm, or am I the type for debatin’? Stand my ground or go with the wind. Never bat an eye or will I flinch and cringe. Commit a sin with an evil grin or study the Bible turn around with a spin? Maybe wear flats high heels get the mature feel…or cop the jordans. Do I steal…or do I purchase? Bold or hide behind the curtains? Do I feel great, or am I really hurtin’ am I lurkin’? Or do I walk like I own the town? Head to the sky or shame face walk with my head down? Act like a clown or the business type? Solid colors or polka dots with pin stripes? Cellphone addict or go payphone manic? Flat screen TV or am I seeing static? Do I–travel to the city or work at the corner store? Am I the soft type or am I just hardcore? Do I appreciate what I have or do I ask for just one more? Am I with the peace group or do I say on with the war? Pent house status or apartment building right on the first floor? What am I really … on the inside? Two different people …like Jekyll and Hyde.
I Am From
by Robert John Hansen
JHS 189Q
I am from the jerk chicken in my fridge,
From my Nike Air Force 1‘s
and from my Craig Jordan jeans.
I am from the ghetto,
The feeling of depression
I am from the mud beneath my shoes,
I am from the tree that stands alone
in a concrete jungle.
I am from anger and shyness
From the quiet old man
and to the raging old lady.
I am from biting my nails
and chewing my lips
And from an argument over nothing.
I am from lies and betrayal
And “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are”
from Grandpa’s chapped lips.
I am from Bob Marley‘s reggae music.
I am from Jamaica, Queens and Chinese, Cuban and Jamaican blood.
Rum cake and curry chicken.
From late night robberies
Where they climb through your window just for a buck.
Where we don’t smile.
Living under my bed with dark souls that don’t come out,
Blood from my family’s past on my white walls,
And my heart ripped from my chest
By the one I love.
Win a Copy of Bright Shiny Morning – Signup Ends Today
from Kelly Hewitt’s LOADED QUESTIONS Author BlogBright Shiny Morning… adopts a cast of characters who are all at once lost, confused and struggling — grasping at creating lives for themselves in the city of Los Angeles. The novel’s online synopsis lays each of the characters out clearly: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home. Each with their own dramatic narrative, these characters appear and disappear from the novel’s canvas, moving in and out of the reader’s view.I found myself genuinely interested in this book, in finding out more about Frey’s style and for that reason am happy to present it as our next Loaded Questions Giveaway.
Click here to visit Kelly Hewitt’s Loaded Questions blog
Mad Prankster Crazy Willy Gone
Illustrator and Prankster Will Elder Dies at 86
Journalista: The Comics Journal Weblog is reporting that Will Elder, the famed illustrator and one of the founders of MadMagazine, has died at 86. (This comes via boing boing.) Elder was considered a major influence on artists like Robert Crumb and Daniel Clowes.
Gary Groth, an editor at Fantagraphics, which published several Elder books (including Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art and Chicken Fat) told the Media Mob, “He was such a fabulous talent in the sense that he could do almost anything.” Recalling his penchant for pranks, Mr. Groth called Mr. Elder “instrumental in making Mad.”
In David Hajdu’s recent book The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, the author described Elder as follows:
He could render anything he could see with the precision of a photograph—or mimic virtually any fine-art style, including various modes of impressionism and early abstract art—yet he had no inclination to waste his time on anything other than his overriding interest, pranksterism. The sound of his name to those who knew him well, such as his former schoolmates and fellow cartoonists, Al Jaffee (who met Elder in eighth grade, when they were both being tested for admission to the High School of Music and Art), John Severin, and David Gantz, was a cue for grin and a round of ‘Crazy Willy’ stories: the time, when he was a kid in the Bronx, when Elder took discarded pieces of beef carcasses from a meat-processing plant, arranged them in old clothes on the railroad tracks, and started screaming that his friend Moishe had been killed; or the time, when he was in high school, that he smeared chalk dust on his face and pretended to be hanging in the coat closet; or, when went to lunch with some friends from EC [Comics] and tried to pay the cashier with leaves of lettuce that he had in his wallet. His humor was almost aggressively madcap, startling, often dark, and silly.
Bang Your Head
from the New York Times article ‘One or Two Murderers in Any Crowd’
To The Reader by Charles Simic
Don’t you hear me
Bang my head
Against your wall?
Of course, you do,
So how come
You don’t answer me?
Bang your head
On your side of the wall
And keep me company.