New York Times Raves Over BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
Little Pieces of Los Angeles, Done His Way
BRIGHT SHINY MORNING By James Frey
He wrote a book but it was bad, liar bad, faker bad, it got him in trouble. A million little pieces. It was the name of the book. It was also how hard he got hit. He had to sit there on the couch. Everybody saw. The television celebrity book club woman got mad, she let him have it. He had to sit there on the couch. He squirmed, he cringed. Everybody watched, everybody blamed him. Then it was over. Then he was gone.
He waited. They forgot about him. He tried again.
In the 1930s Los Angeles is the film capital of the world. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of “The Great Gatsby,” comes to live there. He tries to write movies. He fails. He writes a Hollywood novel, “The Last Tycoon.” He says there are no second acts in American lives. He turns out to be wrong.
The million little pieces guy was called James Frey. He got a second act. 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.
He wrote a big book. He wrote about a city. Los Angeles. He made up a lot of characters, high low rich poor lucky not, every kind, the book threw them together. It was random but smart. Every now and then he would pause the story, switch to the present tense and throw in an urban fact.
Like this: The Los Angeles area has a museum devoted to the banana.
James Frey loved Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski and maybe even John Fante but he didn’t sound like them, he didn’t sound beat or cool. He sounded hopeful. He sounded unguarded, tender. He quit posturing. He stopped romanticizing squalor. He found new energy. He sounded more like Carl Sandburg in love hate thrall with great maddening Chicago than like the usual tough gritty moody chronicler of California’s broken dreams.
He wrote about people who were drawn to Los Angeles and who they were, why they came, what they wanted, whether they got it, if they didn’t get that, then what they got instead. He looked into their hearts. But he didn’t get sloppy, not maudlin. He just made up characters and wrote as if he cared about them desperately. Bright Shiny Morning. A new chance, real or illusory, that’s what they all wanted. Bright Shiny Morning. So he made that the name of the book.
His publisher called it a dazzling tour de force. (Look, somebody had to, if only to create a comeback drama.) But that wasn’t so far off the mark. Even if his publisher maybe could have asked more questions about what the banana museum had to do with anything.
Still, even the stray facts had their artistry. They helped turn this book into the captivating urban kaleidoscope that, most recently, Charles Bock’s “Beautiful Children” was supposed to be. Bright Shiny Morning was mobile and alert to layout, tempo, different voices, how words looked on the page. Different visual styles suited different characters. Some got long litanies of brisk, sharp dialogue. Others got dense, descriptive prose.
Even the one-sentence page had its use here.
The language got sleek and arch when the book described two superstars, Amberton and Casey. A man and a woman, married to each other, best friends both gay no secrets. Everything perfect, supposed to look that way. Prop children. Money houses cars personal assistants nannies yoga teacher everything perfect. Wearing vicuña. Eating ahi tuna. Still Amberton wanted more, got a crush on an ex-football player. All this captured with elegance, with wit. Movie stars. Not so original, so what? So what if the book always made poor people humble decent better than rich spoiled profligate ones?
So there were Maddie and Dylan, young and in love, eking out a living and traveling on a moped, he eventually got a job as a caddy she as a clerk. The book loved them. There was Old Man Joe, homeless guy, living in a bathroom in Venice, Calif., somehow stronger more decent more heroic than the star who plays movie heroes.
And Esperanza, Mexican-American, working as a maid for an old white lady so mean she threw her morning cup of coffee if Esperanza didn’t make it right. But the old lady turned out to have a son. He liked Esperanza, liked treating her like a human being. Maybe he liked needling his mother even better.
There were easy ways a cynical, sentimental crybaby like the million little pieces guy could have told Esperanza’s part of the story. Crisis, violence, redemption, whatever: that’s what he knew about. That’s what he wrote about. That’s what he passed off as nonfiction. That’s why he sounded as if he’d seen too many lousy movies.
So the Bright Shiny Morning guy did it differently. He let the little vignette play out against a big, gaudy, dangerous Southern California backdrop, full of drug-dealing gang-bangers, full of schemers, phonies, rich with a history of robber barons, all of it listed here, all of it stacking the deck against any generosity of spirit. The son steals the maid’s virtue? Been there, read that. They plot against the old lady? Been there too. This novelist wanted something else for Esperanza: he wanted to honor her, fall in love with her, do it with startling sincerity. He wanted to save her.
And it worked.
That’s how James Frey saved himself.
Keith Haring Would Have Been 50 This Year
The ‘Crack is Wack’ mural was painted by Haring in 1986 and is still on display at the Crack is Wack Playground at Second Avenue, 127th Street and Harlem River Drive.
Credits: James Keivom
“I guess I, like, 97% agree with Sedaris.”
from GalleyCat @ MediaBistro.com
Fiction? Nonfiction? Memoir? David Sedaris Just Calls His Work “Real-ish”
Count on David Sedaris to sidestep the whole thorny memoir-truth issue with humor. When ‘When You Are Engulfed In Flames’ comes out next month, it “will carry a short preface, labeling the contents ‘real-ish.'” I guess I’ve always thought that if 97 percent of the story is true, then that’s an acceptable formula,” he told the Christian Science Monitor.
Sedaris goes on to say that “we live in a time when our government is telling us some pretty profound lies. And then James Frey writes a book and it turns out some of it’s not true. No one asked for their vote back, but everyone wanted back the money they’d spent on that book. We’re in the shadow of huge lies and getting angry about the small ones.”
The issue of how long someone whose sales were predicated on sympathy and trust spent in jail might not seem like a “small lie” to everyone, of course, but yeah, it’s not a WMD-level whopper. So I guess I, like, 97% agree with Sedaris.
People Envy Happiness, Dogs, Though, Sense Courage Knowing Jubilation Means Better Ass(ets)
Tom Waits on P.E.H.D.T.S.C.K.J.M.B.A. – the constellational philosophy guiding his new 2008 tour, Glitter and Doom. Visit www.tomwaits.com for more.
“Oprah won’t be reading it, but maybe you should.”
Disgraced memoirist James Frey opts for fiction with ‘Bright Shiny Morning’
Saturday, May 3rd 2008, 10:38 AM
BRIGHT SHINY MORNING by James Frey, Harper, $26.95
James Frey was publicly scourged by Oprah for fabricating pivotal passages in “A Million Little Pieces,” his “memoir” that she made a best seller when she chose it for her book club. Frey sat still for her nationally televised shaming, his dejection more real than his work.
Well, Frey isn’t taking it sitting down anymore. He defends his processes and calls out his editor for manipulation in the current Vanity Fair. Now comes his first novel, or at least his first book labeled fiction.
In the tradition of novels about Los Angeles, take Nathanael West on one hand and Jackie Collins on the other, then spread your arms wide. Somewhere in the middle, “Bright Shiny Morning” falls in your lap.
Frey begins on a droll note: “Nothing in this novel should be considered accurate or reliable.” He’s referring to the L.A.-centric lists that stud the book – highway routes, gang names, eccentric laws – where he’s said to mix facts with fiction, just like in his memoirs (his second was “My Friend Leonard”). Get it?
His many stories mix in the passing with the interspersed narratives of four couples.
A homeless drunk tries to protect a teenage street kid; a Mexican-American maid is humiliated by her mistress but loved by the woman’s son; two young runaways from the Midwest are desperate to start a new life in the city, two high-gloss movie stars fake their marriage to hide the fact both are gay.
It’s about grim failure in Tinseltown (West) and it’s so Hollywood, baby! (Collins) with screen-ready portrayals of the little people, too.
“Bright Shiny Morning” is a bit literary and a lot schlock. It’s also get-out commercial. Oprah won’t be reading it, but maybe you should. It won’t improve your life, but your weekend maybe?
Mike Tyson Documentary To Show At Cannes
from the Playlist blog http://playlist.blogspot.com
New ‘Legendary’ Nas Track Featured In James Toback’s Upcoming Mike Tyson Documentary
When we wrote about the Cannes 2008 line-up, we briefly mentioned James Toback’s upcoming documentary that will debut at the Croisette about former heavy weight boxing champion Mike Tyson.Well, apparently a new Nas track titled, “Legendary,” will be featured in the doc according to Angry Ape. The score has been composed by hip-hop producer and keyboard player Salaam Remi known for his work with the Godson (Remi also producer ‘Be A Nigger, Too” from the controversially and still-unreleased upcoming album Nigger.)
The documentary, entitled “Tyson,” evidently follows the path that the fighter took after both his championship losses and his eventual fall from grace. Toback has said that he amassed over 30 hours of interviews with Tyson which took almost a year to complete. “Mike made himself completely vulnerable in this film, and he was honest about all the things that have highlighted his life,” said Toback.
Toback earned Tyson’s trust years ago when the mercurial pugilist played himself in the 1991 film, “Black and White,” which also featured Wu-Tang‘s Method Man, InspectahDeck, Masta Killa, GhostfaceKillah, and an infamous scene where uber-tart Bijou Phillips blows ‘s Raekwon (the MPAA gave the film an NC-17 rating initially until this sex scene was edited down).
New Books Coming Out
New books for your radar
Saturday, May 10th 2008, 4:00 AM
There are some great books coming. To help you keep on track here’s a quick list of some titles soon to be in bookstores.
Fiction
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“Bright, Shiny Morning” by James Frey, May 13
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“Careless in Red” by Elizabeth George, May 20
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“The Front” by Patrica Cornwell, May 20
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“All We Ever Wanted Was Everything” by Spiegel & Grau, May 27
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“Devil May Care” by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming, May 27
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“Chasing Harry Winston” by Lauren Weisberger, May 27
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“Black Out” by Lisa Unger, May 27
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“The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie, May 27
Non-fiction
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“The Girl with the Crooked Nose: A Tale of Murder, Obsession and Forensic Artistry” by Ted Botha, May 13
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“Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest” by Lincoln Hall, May 13
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“Leisureville: Adventures in america’s Retirement Utopia” by Andrew D. Blechman, May 13
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“Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steriods” by Julie Salamon, May 15
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“Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier’s Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World WarII” by Brendan I. Koerner, May 29
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“Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory” by Mickey Rapin, May 29
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“Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science” by Richard Preston, May 27
And on Sunday, God created FACEBOOK
Hello – please consider joining the Facebook group for James Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning –
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7451249097
If you do sign up, too please take a moment to click on the link at the right of the group page and Invite to Join any of your Friends you think also might be interested in reading Bright Shiny Morning.
Thank you.
NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers 05/18/2008
Hardcover Fiction
| This Week |
 |
Last Week |
Weeks On List |
| 1 | SUNDAY AT TIFFANY’S, by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) A woman finds an unexpected love. | 1 | |
| 2 | THE WHOLE TRUTH, by David Baldacci. (Grand Central, $26.99.) An intelligence agent and a journalist team up against a warmongering defense contractor. | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | TWENTY WISHES, by Debbie Macomber. (Mira, $24.95.) A widow who owns a bookstore on Blossom Street compiles a list of things she always wanted to do. | 1 | |
| 4 | HOLD TIGHT, by Harlan Coben. (Dutton, $26.95.) The aftermath of a New Jersey high school kid’s suicide. | 2 | 3 |
| 5 | * UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, by Jhumpa Lahiri. (Knopf, $25.) Stories about the anxiety and transformation experienced by Bengali parents and their American children. | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | WHERE ARE YOU NOW?, by Mary Higgins Clark. (Simon & Schuster, $25.95.) A woman searches for the truth about her brother, who is alive but has disappeared. | 5 | 4 |
| 7 | * DEAD HEAT, by Joel C. Rosenberg. (Tyndale, $24.99.) With the world on the brink of war, terrorists plot to assassinate a candidate in a closely fought presidential election. | 8 | 6 |
| 8 | THE MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS, by Alexander McCall Smith. (Pantheon, $22.95.) The ninth novel in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. | 3 | 3 |
| 9 | CHILD 44, by Tom Rob Smith. (Grand Central, $24.99.) A serial killer in Stalinist Russia can’t be caught because he doesn’t officially exist. | 1 | |
| 10 | CERTAIN GIRLS, by Jennifer Weiner. (Atria, $26.95.) A girl discovers the sexy, somewhat autobiographical novel her mother wrote years earlier. | 6 | 4 |
| 11 | DAYS OF INFAMY, by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen. (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s, $27.95.) An “alternative history” of the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. | 1 | |
| 12 | QUICKSAND, by Iris Johansen. (St. Martin’s, $26.95.) The forensic sculptor Eve Duncan tracks a killer who claims to have murdered her daughter years earlier. | 7 | 2 |
| 13 | THE APPEAL, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $27.95.) Political and legal intrigue ensue when a Mississippi court decides against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste. | 9 | 14 |
| 14 | SANTA FE DEAD, by Stuart Woods. (Putnam, $25.95.) A Santa Fe lawyer investigates his nefarious former wife. | 10 | 2 |
| 15 | THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO, by Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $24.95.) A Dominican-American in New Jersey struggles to escape a family curse. | 5 | |
| 16 | * A PLAGUE OF DOVES, by Louise Erdrich. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.95.) A lynching in a North Dakota town has repercussions over several generations. | 1 | |
| Also Selling | |||
| 17 | A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead) | ||
| 18 | THE THIRD CIRCLE, by Amanda Quick (Putnam) | ||
| 19 | CHANGE OF HEART, by Jodi Picoult (Atria) | ||
| 20 | BELONG TO ME, by Marisa de los Santos (Morrow) | ||
| 21 | COMPULSION, by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine) | ||
| 22 | BULLS ISLAND, by Dorothea Benton Frank (Morrow) | ||
| 23 | WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett (Dutton) | ||
| 24 | SMALL FAVOR, by Jim Butcher (Roc) | ||
| 25 | SO BRAVE, YOUNG AND HANDSOME, by Leif Enger (Atlantic) | ||
| 26 | WINTER STUDY, by Nevada Barr (Putnam) | ||
| 27 | THE DAY I ATE WHATEVER WANTED, by Elizabeth Berg (Random House) | ||
| 28 | THE GIRL WITH NO SHADOW, by Joanne Harris (Morrow) | ||
| 29 | ZAPPED, by Carol Higgins Clark (Scribner) | ||
| 30 | REMEMBER ME?, by Sophie Kinsella (Dial) | ||
| 31 | 7TH HEAVEN, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) | ||
| 32 | A PRISONER OF BIRTH, by Jeffrey Archer (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 33 | PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) | ||
| 34 | LUSH LIFE, by Richard Price (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) | ||
| 35 | THE THIRD ANGEL, by Alice Hoffman (Shaye Areheart)
|
||
Thanks for the write-up, Mike
I guess Michael Leaverton doesn’t like me. from SFWeekly.com
Mea Culpas Are for Suckers
The question of whether James Frey received redemption could not be answered by press time, for Frey’s new publisher, HarperCollins, did not send us his first novel, Bright Shiny Morning. HarperCollins did send a few people the book (but not us), while demanding that no reviews appear before the official publication date, which was Tuesday. Certainly he took his own advice to F.T.B.S.I.T.T.T.D, or Fuck the Bullshit It’s Time to Throw Down, since he has that tattooed on his arm. (Note to young writers: Don’t get this tattoo.) Actually, we did see one review: Frey defender Sara Nelson of Publishers Weekly was granted the honor of releasing hers on April 14, and she called the book a “train wreck” and “unputdownable” in the same sentence, which is exactly what we think every time we open the latest James Patterson. It’s quite possible that Bright Shiny Morning, a thick book about everybody in L.A., might not move Frey too far toward his goal (now long-term) of being the best writer of his generation. But something tells us he’s going to be throwing down after fucking the bullshit for a long time to come. Take tonight, when he appears not under the guise of a put-upon writer but as, well, J.T. LeRoy circa 2003, booking a huge rock club and arming himself with local writer Stephen Elliott, writer and former drag queen Josh Kilmer-Purcell, photographs by Terry Richardson, and local metal band 3rdrail. Don’t make him feel like he F.T.B.S.I.T.T.T.D’ed for nothing.[ click to view original link at SFWeekly.com ]
Brooklyn BOOKCOURT Added to BRIGHT SHINY MORNING Tour Schedule
Following is the appearance and event schedule for James Frey’s BRIGHT SHINY MORNING – with Brooklyn BOOKCOURT just added for a late July date
| New York, NY Tuesday, May 13, 2008 7:00 PM EST With Josh Kilmer-Purcell BLENDER THEATER 127 E 23rd St New York, NY 10010 Sponsored by Barnes and Noble |
Portland, OR Wednesday, May 21, 2008 7:00 PM PST With Josh Kilmer-Purcell BAGDAD THEATRE 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd Portland, OR 97214 Sponsored by Powells Bookstore |
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| Los Angeles, CA Thursday, May 15, 2008 7:30 PM With Josh Kilmer-Purcell & music by Black Tide WHISKY A GO GO 8901 Sunset Blvd West Hollywood, CA 90069 Sponsored by Vroman’s and Book Soup |
Ann Arbor, MI Thursday, May 22, 2008 7:00 PM BORDERS BOOKS AND MUSIC 612 E Liberty St Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Sponsored by Borders |
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| San Francisco, CA Friday, May 16, 2008 7:00 PM PST With Stephen Elliot, Josh Kilmer-Purcell & music by Third Rail SLIM’S 333 11th St San Francisco, CA 94103 Sponsored by Books Inc. |
Philadelphia, PA Tuesday, May 27, 2008 7:00 PM FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA Montgomery Auditorium 1901 Vine ST Philadelphia, PA 19103 Sponsored by the Free Library of Philadelphia |
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| Marin, CA Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:00 PM With Josh Kilmer-Purcell BOOK PASSAGE 51 Tamal Vista Blvd Corte Madera, CA 94925 |
Boston, MA Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:00 PM EST COOLIDGE CORNER THEATER 290 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446 Sponsored by Brookline Booksmith |
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| Seattle, WA Monday, May 19, 2008 7:30 PM With Josh Kilmer-Purcell SEATTLE TOWN HALL 1119 8th Ave Elliott Bay Book Company Seattle, WA 98101 Sponsored by Elliott Bay Books |
Toronto, ON Tuesday, June 3, 2008 7:00 PM INDIGO AT THE MANULIFE CENTRE 55 Bloor St. West Toronto, ON M4W 1A5 Sponsored by Indigo Books |
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| Seattle, WA Tuesday, May 20, 2008 6:30 PM WORDS & WINE AT THE W 4th and University W Hotel Seattle Seattle, WA 98101 Sponsored by Words and Wine Series |
Amagansett, NY Saturday, June 7, 2008 5:30 PM EST BOOKHAMPTON Amagansett Square 154 Main ST Amagansett, NY 11930 Sponsored by Bookhampton |
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| Brooklyn, NY Thursday, July 24, 2008 7:00 PM EST BOOKCOURT 163 Court St. Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 875 3677 |
Oral Sex Investigator Hired To Protect Brad Pitt, Miley Cyrus
from the San Jose Mercury News
Malibu turns to own Starr to help rein in paparazzi
LOS ANGELES – Can Ken Starr tame Malibu’s rabid paparazzi?
That’s what officials in the seaside town are hoping as they turn to the independent counsel who investigated President Clinton’s involvement with a White House intern to help them craft restrictions on “pap packs” that descend on the celebrity-rich area.
Malibu officials say their town has been overrun by the celebrity media, who invade the city’s few shopping centers and follow some celebrities down Pacific Coast Highway. In the past few years, merchants have complained about photographers blocking store entrances and staking out restaurants and Malibu’s multiplex movie theater.
Brad Pitt had to place a massive tarp around his beachfront mansion to ward off paparazzi. Dozens of photographers recently swarmed around pop star Miley Cyrus during a trip to a shopping center.
Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich said Thursday that she had asked Starr, dean of the Pepperdine University law school, to convene a group of experts in the media and legal community to help draft a city ordinance that might include “buffer zones” as well as a possible tax on the paparazzi.
“We’re coming up on another summer season. Let’s hope we are not in store for another tsunami of paparazzi,” Ulich said. “Maybe they will think twice before shoving a camera in your face.”
Some Folks Buy Two, One For Each Side Of The Bed
Entertainment Weekly Review
from Entertainment Weekly
BOOK REVIEW
Bright Shiny Morning (2008)
James Frey
Writer: James Frey; Genres: Drama, Fiction; Publisher: Harper Collins
James Frey doesn’t lack ambition. In his first official novel, Bright Shiny Morning, the notorious ex-memoirist tries to capture the entirety of Los Angeles, that vast, heterogeneous city that’s both a destination for dreamers and a dumping ground for urban bottom-feeders. Imagine the movie Crash rewritten as a pastiche of Tom Wolfe, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jackie Collins — and you get a sense of the frustrating experience of reading this slack, self-indulgent mess.
While Frey has done loads of research on L.A., he seems to empty the contents of his notebooks rather than integrate them into a coherent story. He produces lists of gang names, eight pages describing the city’s highways, five pages of natural disasters in its history, another five naming patients in VA hospitals, eight pages of ”Fun Facts” and ”Facts Not So Fun.” The lists go on. And on.
He introduces scores of characters, some briefly (”Ron. Bodybuilder. Wants to be an action star. Works at a gym”) and others for a few pages (an online gossiper who’s clearly meant to suggest Perez Hilton). Ultimately, four principal plots emerge. Two are rather conventional tales of the downtrodden: There’s Joe, a 39-year-old homeless guy near Venice Beach, and Esperanza, the U.S.-born daughter of illegal Mexican immigrants, working as a maid to pay for college. Meanwhile, Amberton Parker, an A-list movie star who, like his actress wife, is deeply closeted, risks his career by sexually harassing a junior exec at his talent agency, an African-American former college football star. (Collins’ prurient romps are more believable.) Frey’s strongest creation is Dylan, a teen who steals his girlfriend, Maddie, from her abusive Midwestern home to forge a new life in L.A. Like the character ”James Frey” in the author’s previous books, Dylan is a basically nice guy from Ohio with a penchant for big risks and affectless banter, and a hunger for a surrogate father (in this case, Dylan’s boss at a golf course). While Maddie remains a cipher, Dylan’s story manages to rise above its implausibilities and suggest the compelling novel Morning might have been. But Frey never achieves narrative momentum — he’s too easily distracted by, say, a list of customers at a local gun store.
In fairness, Frey is not entirely to blame for the failure of Morning, which reads like the overreaching first draft of a gifted M.F.A. student. Where was Frey’s editor at HarperCollins to guide Frey into pruning the clutter and dramatizing the themes in his fact-based tangents? As it stands, Morning is like L.A. at its worst: undone by ambition, sprawl, and (verbal) smog. Not to mention a glib resistance to hard work. D+
TIME Magazine Thumbs Up Review for James Frey’s BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
Thursday, May. 08, 2008
The New James Frey: A Review
I’m not going to get between you and James Frey. Frey, as everybody knows, is the author of two books that were published as memoirs–A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard–but turned out to be not especially factually accurate. I’m not that upset about it, mostly because I didn’t think the books were that great in the first place. They felt crude and overwrought and underthought to me, and maybe as if Frey were just a little too proud of what a thorough mess he’d made of his life. Yes, he violated the unwritten contract between writer and reader. I wouldn’t blame anybody for being mad at him. I just wasn’t that invested.
So I approached Frey’s new book, a novel called Bright Shiny Morning (Harper; 512 pages) with something approximating a neutral frame of mind. As it turns out, if you’re thinking of not buying it because of Frey’s past misdeeds, you might want to look for some other way of getting back at him, because it’s a pretty good read.
Bright Shiny Morning is a refreshingly archaic affair, an old-fashioned book written in an old-fashioned style. It’s less a novel about Los Angeles than it is Los Angeles–in-novel-form, an attempt to embrace and describe and sum up the city by mixing fictional story lines about diverse characters–rich, poor, homeless; black, white, Mexican–with actual facts (somebody might want to check them) about L.A.’s freeways and crime rates and history and such. It’s reminiscent of one of Tom Wolfe‘s billion-footed beasts, but it’s even more reminiscent of the socially conscious early 20th century naturalism of John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck. Fittingly, Frey uses a hard-boiled, under-punctuated, Hemingway type of nonstyle that seems to growl, I’m giving you the straight dope here, son. (A sample: “They lived in a small town in an eastern state it was nowhere anywhere everywhere, a small American town full of alcohol, abuse and religion. He worked in an auto body shop and she worked as a clerk at a gas station and they were going to get married and buy a house …”)
There are four main story lines. One concerns a $20-million-a-movie married superstar who is secretly gay. Another involves a teenage couple who run away from home in small-town Ohio to work service-level jobs in L.A. There’s also a mildly demented homeless man who finds purpose when he meets a meth-addicted runaway. And there’s Esperanza, a maid who makes a love connection with her psychotically mean boss’s nice, nerdy son.
These stories have two things in common. One, they take place in L.A. Two, they are all clichés. Frey has less fear of cliché, or of sentimentality, or of stating the obvious, than almost any other writer I have ever read. He literally writes as if he personally discovered that show-biz people are fake, homeless people can have hearts of gold, love can bridge any divide, and people go to L.A. to watch their dreams die.
And yet. Compare Bright Shiny Morning with, say, Charles Bock’s Beautiful Children, a novel of similar proportions and ambitions (it’s about Las Vegas) that was published in January to great critical acclaim. Children drips with nuance and high purpose and psychological complexity, but in all honesty, I would far rather spend an evening (or a morning) with Morning than with Children. The worst bits of Morning are probably worse than anything else you’ll read this year, but Frey is such a relentlessly entertaining storyteller that you just won’t care. Sure, the setups are formulaic (ironically, Frey makes fun of Hollywood’s cookie-cutter plots, while his aren’t much better), but the details are pure over-the-top pulp, and they go by so fast you don’t have time to roll your eyes. Frey has a history of having a little too much fun with facts, among other controlled substances. As a writer of fiction, he may finally have found a job where that’s not a problem.
Chickens With Perky Breasts
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2007)
Troma Entertainment
Jason Yachanin and Kate Graham in “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead,” directed by Lloyd Kaufman.
Going for the Finger-Licking Gusto
It’s opening day at the new American Chicken Bunker, and, as might be expected of a fast-food restaurant built atop an American Indian burial ground, things are going to hell. Outside, a group of protesters led by the frequently topless Collegiate Lesbians Against Mega-Conglomerations (CLAM) vents its outrage at the perpetuators of the chicken holocaust.
Inside, Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera) has met with an “accident” while surreptitiously adding his own special sauce to a mélange of fetid chicken parts, and Carl Jr. (Caleb Emerson) is lethally impaled by a mop after attempting some hanky-panky with the reanimated corpse of a slimy roaster.
“The chicken,” shrieks the burqa-clad line cook Humus (Rose Ghavami), “has declared jihad on us all!”
Needless to say, “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead”is not for every taste. But within the context of its genre — the satirical sexploitation zombie chicken gross-out musical extravaganza — it is just about as perfect as a film predicated on the joys of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea can be. Directed with finger-licking gusto by Lloyd Kaufman, the irrepressible co-founder of Troma Entertainment, “Poultrygeist” plays like a grindhouse analogue to the sloppy, psychosexual provocations of the performance artist Paul McCarthy and is, in its lowbrow way, every bit as liberating.
Poet Eric Priestly Still Fighting The Power
Rhyme and reason in Watts
Poet Eric Priestly is in a fight with City Hall to remain in the neighborhood he’s written about for decades.
Eric Priestley is out of his place.
It’s odd to think of him being out. Eric’s a poet and writer who until recently lived in the heart of Watts, arguably the most troubled part of town. He’s been there since 1982. I used to puzzle over an idealist like him living there, but it made sense because Watts created him. A survivor (barely) of the Watts riots and an original member of the Watts Writers Workshop, Eric found his calling in the heated aftermath of 1965. I first encountered him on the page almost 15 years ago, reading a book of his collected poetry called “Abracadabra.”
homeless lay I high in the weeds
a seed in scorched soil
a bud in flames
amongst the other children
beneath the trees of night.
“Abracadabra” was magic, indeed. But the magic, or whatever kept Eric close to Watts, has run its course. The city that he rendered so vividly in his work has put him out of his place, which is not technically a residence but a warehouse adjacent to the Watts Towers Arts Center. The reasons why and how Eric lived there at all are complicated, but suffice it to say it was partly out of loyalty and partly out of fiscal necessity.
The Legend of The Dead Pot Head
from the Houston Chronicle via Drudge
3 accused of using corpse head to smoke pot
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Two men and a juvenile are accused of digging up a corpse, decapitating the body and using the head to smoke marijuana, according to court documents.
Matthew Gonzalez and Kevin Jones have been charged with the misdemeanor offense of abuse of a corpse, said Scott Durfee, a spokesman for the Harris County District Attorneys Office.
According to documents filed in the case, Gonzalez, Jones and an unnamed juvenile on March 15 went to an Humble cemetery, dug up a man’s grave, left with the head and turned it into a “bong.”
Gonzalez told authorities about the incident Wednesday, and showed officers the defaced grave, including a 4-foot hole. Because of a heavy rain, officers were unable to determine whether the casket or the body had been disturbed.
BRIGHT SHINY MORNING San Francisco Reading & Show @ Slim’s
Sarah Jessica Parker Before She Had Sex
Happily Heading Back to School With ‘Square Pegs’
By JEN CHANEY
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
“Square Pegs” was a TV show about nerds. But when it debuted in 1982, it immediately emerged as one of the hippest things on primetime TV.
The comedy about two unpopular high schoolers scheming their way up the social ladder was a rarity among adolescent series: It was honest, unconventional, infused with modern-rock music and filled with pop culture references. Shot in single-camera format and featuring offbeat humor crafted by a largely female writing staff, “Square Pegs” can be seen in retrospect as a pioneer, paving the way for later left-of-center teen fare like “Freaks and Geeks” and “My So-Called Life.” Of course at the time, CBS didn’t see it that way, which is why — like “Freaks” and “Life” — it was canceled after its first season.
Now the ’80s classic, starring a young, bespectacled Sarah Jessica Parker before she blossomed into the glam Carrie Bradshaw, comes to DVD on May 20 ($29.99) ready to be revisited by anyone who fondly remembers listening to a Walkman, talking like a Valley Girl and loving the “Square Pegs” theme song by the Waitresses. Yes, as smart as “Square Pegs” remains, its charms will be most thoroughly appreciated by children of the ’80s. I mean, one of the episodes is called “Pac-Man Fever.” Another features a performance by the band Devo, who appears at preppy Muffy Tepperman’s New Wave bat mitzvah. If you never spiked your hair or wore legwarmers, the sheer genius of such plot developments may be lost on you.
Masters Still Raking It In
Monet and Rodin Set Price Records at Christie’s
Fears that the Christie’s sale of Impressionist and modern art would usher in a market meltdown were assuaged early Tuesday evening when everything from a Monet landscape to a monumental sculpture by Rodin brought record prices.
Although more modern images seem to generate the most auction excitement these days, the Monet painting was the evening’s biggest ticket. The 1873 canvas “The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil,” is considered a prime example of high Impressionism, and Christie’s experts had predicted it would fetch $35 million.
So when a buyer bidding by telephone beat out two other contenders to pay a record $41.4 million, it proved that the market for top Impressionist works is alive and well. The previous auction record for a Monet was the $36.5 million paid last June at Sotheby’s in London for a “Waterlilies” from 1904.
“Railroad Bridge” proved a wise long-term investment for the Nahmad family, dealers with galleries in New York and London who were the sellers. They bought the painting in 1988 at Christie’s in London for $12.6 million, which was at the time the second-highest price ever paid at auction for a Monet. (A few months earlier, his 1876 “In the Prairie” had sold for $22.5 million at Sotheby’s.)
Monumental sculptures also brought surprising prices. “Eve, the Large Version,” a five-foot-tall Rodin bronze of a woman with folded arms hiding her face in shame, sold for $18.9 million, a record price for the artist. Conceived in 1881 and cast in 1887, it had been expected to bring $9 million to $12 million.
Laurence Graff, the London-based jeweler, sat in the front row and was seen buying two sculptures by Henry Moore: “Family Group,” a nearly 18-inch-high bronze of a family of four for $4 million, just above its $3.5 million estimate, and “Working Model for Reclining Figure: Angles” (1975-77), for which he paid $3.2 million, in line with its high estimate.
“Portrait with a Blue Coat,” a 1935 Matisse, was also a winner. A portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya, his studio assistant and frequent model, in a fur stole and pearls, sold to a telephone bidder for $22.4 million, well above its $17 million estimate.
Miró’s “Caress of the Stars” (1938), which shows the artist’s familiar grotesque abstract figures against a galaxy of menacing tentacular stars, brought $17 million. The painting, which experts link to the artist’s preoccupation with the civil strife in Spain, sold for $11.7 million at Christie’s in 2004. Christie’s had estimated it would sell for $12 million to $16 million on Tuesday night.“Anita en Almée” (1908), a sexually charged painting by Kees Van Dongen of a topless woman with veils whose title invokes the Near Eastern “almah,” or belly dancer, failed to sell. It had been expected to go for $12 million to $16 million.
A Venice scene painted by Monet in 1908 also had no takers. It had been estimated to fetch $8 million to $12 million.
As the crowds milled outside of Christie’s after the sale, dealers and collectors were visibly relieved that the money is still out there for the right art.
New Book Titles Out Next Week
Attainment: New Titles Out Next Week
Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, May 13:
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (Harper, $23.95, 9780061537936/0061537934) is the story of a dog and his race car driver owner from the point of view of the dog. (See a review below.)
Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey (Harper, $26.95, 9780061573132/0061573132) follows a variety of struggling Los Angeles residents.
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs by Elissa Wall and Lisa Pulitzer (Morrow, $25.95, 9780061628016/0061628018) chronicles the story of a girl who was forced to marry her cousin at age 14.
Up Till Now: The Autobiography by William Shatner and David Fisher (Thomas Dunne Books, $25.95, 9780312372651/0312372655) explores the life and career of the actor.
Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffin (St. Martin’s, $24.95, 9780312348670/0312348673) follows a woman who questions her current marriage after meeting an old boyfriend.
Scream for Me by Karen Rose (Grand Central, $16.99, 9780446509206/0446509205) continues the story of Special Agent Daniel Vartanian, a detective hunting a serial killer.
The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine, $28, 9780345461421/0345461428) follows Allied and Nazi leaders during the D-Day invasion.
Shadow Command: A Novel by Dale Brown (Morrow, $25.95, 9780061173110/0061173118) takes place aboard a secret military space station as it tries to defend against a covert Russian attack.
Now in paperback:
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (S&S, $17.95, 9780743264747/0743264746).
Mark Sarvas’ Next Elegant Variation
Q & A: blogger and first-time novelist Mark Sarvas
The man behind the Elegant Variation blog and author of ‘Harry, Revised‘ is ready for the criticism he’s built a reputation on. Sarvas says he expects the ‘sharp knives will come out.’
Mark Sarvas, who was raised in a Hungarian Jewish family in Queens, N.Y., has become notorious as the acid-fingered blogger at the Elegant Variation, a literary site he launched in 2003.
Right out of the gate, he’s been a champion of authors he loves — John Banville, J.M. Coetzee, Zadie Smith — and a harsh critic of those he doesn’t: the Los Angeles Times Book Review, British provocateur Christopher Hitchens, literary “it” boy Keith Gessen, and, going back to the site’s first week, writer Steve Almond. (That vendetta provoked a 4,000-word retort on Salon’s website from the Boston-based journalist and author.)
Sarvas’ new novel, “Harry, Revised,” is about a disoriented nebbish who is so self-conscious he can barely act. But that doesn’t keep him from falling for a red-haired waitress named Molly while getting lunch at Cafe Retro on the day of his wife’s funeral. Complications ensue.
We talked to Sarvas, who lives on the Westside and came across as a remarkably well-behaved lad. Could it be because of the book about to drop?
What came first for you, the desire to criticize and assess or the urge to create characters and narrative?
The desire to write, to create, came first. Like a lot of others, I came out to Los Angeles originally to write screenplays, and when you spend any amount of time doing that, you quickly find that it’s not very satisfying. I would get feedback from my agent and producers that ‘There’s a novelist in you trying to get out.’
The Best Of The ‘Ass
from Jackass
artnews on artnet
JAMES FREY, ART WORLD DARLING
Ever wonder what James Frey — the author who went through a very public shaming at the hands of Oprah Winfrey when it was revealed that his memoir,A Million Little Pieces, had been fabricated — is up to these days? Well, among other things, he has moved aggressively into the art world. Along with Andy Spade and Bill Powers, Frey bankrolled the Half Gallery at 208 Forsyth Street in New York’s booming Lower East Side. The new space opened last month with a show of paintings by Matt Damhave, co-founder of the fashion label Imitation of Christ. According to an article in the New York Sun, Frey has also invested the earnings from his memoirs well — that is, in artworks by the likes of Matthew Barney, Cecily Brown, Damien Hirst and Ed Ruscha.
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| Robert Hawkins May 14th – June 14th Opening reception May 14th 6 – 8pm |
McWhinnie’s Frey has a new book coming out from HarperCollins, this one a baldly fictional narrative collage about life in L.A. titled Bright Shiny Morning, and if he manages to resurrect himself it will be no small part due to sympathy from the art world. Among his champions are art-book publisher extraordinaire John McWhinnie, who is putting out a deluxe edition of Bright Shiny Morning, and artist Richard Prince, who is doing the cover for the book and who says he counts Frey as a personal friend.
McWhinnie’s collaboration with Frey is titled Wives, Wheels, Weapons, and pairs three sections of the new novel (including one about an adulterous affair that was deemed too hot for the American edition) with photo illustrations by fashion photographer Terry Richardson. The book is priced at $150 for the hardcover and $75 for softcover, both in an edition of 1,000. In addition, five copies of an even-more-exclusive “Wife / Girlfriend” edition, accompanied by art works from Prince and Richardson, are signed by all three men. These are priced at $30,000-$50,000.
Still A Better Investment Than Real Estate
For Sale: Art and Optimism
YOU can’t help but wonder just how many of the smartly dressed people sitting night after night at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury over the next two weeks will be serious bidders and how many will be voyeurs hoping to witness an implosion of the multibillion dollar art market.
Man-Crazy Nurse 2 by Richard Prince (offered by Douglas S. Cramer)
For years collectors and the news media have been speculating about when prices would finally top out. Spring sales estimates don’t suggest pessimism. The auction houses clearly hope that things will play out as they did three months ago in London, when, despite global economic queasiness, a Francis Bacon triptych sold for $51.6 million. Now two Bacon triptychs, whose owners no doubt want to capitalize on that high, are going on the block, at estimates of $25 million to $35 million (Christie’s, shown above) and a whopping $70 million (Sotheby’s).
But despite the bullish prices, this auction season feels different. Economic anxiety has deepened in recent months, with the proposed bailout of Bear Stearns in March, continuing stock-market gyrations and increasing signs that we either are in or about to be in a recession.
And the art market has its own problems. Sotheby’s stock price is roughly half what it was last October, and its latest annual report shows that the amount of money owed to the house more than doubled to $835 million last year. Hoping to keep the bubble afloat, Sotheby’s has been giving buyers more time to hand over the money for their purchases. (It is the only publicly traded company of the three houses.)
But despite it all, sales estimates at the auction houses are more robust than ever.
Aside from the Bacon triptychs (to be auctioned at Christie’s on May 13 and at Sotheby’s on May 14), Sotheby’s is selling a coveted Cubist painting by Fernand Léger at its Impressionist and modern art sale on Wednesday. It is estimated to fetch $35 million to $45 million.
Christie’s boasts some splashy offerings too. A rare Monet will be auctioned on Tuesday, and next week’s sale includes a strong sampling of Pop Art by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann. Sotheby’s and Christie’s are also selling 1950s red-and-yellow Rothkos that they predict will bring $35 million to $45 million each.
Never Forget Me I Am Nirodh
“It’s my life’s ambition not to be the subject of a Krakauer book.”
A desert hike through Joshua Tree with high tech
Finding solitude in Joshua Tree National Park — albeit with a satellite phone, GPS unit and locator beacon. Call it ‘e-survival.’
“Whoso walketh in solitude, and inhabiteth the wood . . . into that forester shall pass . . . power and grace.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
But what if I snap my ankle? Or blow a cardiac gasket? Or fall or get stuck on a mountain where I can’t go up or down, what climbers call getting “cliffed out”? What then, Ralph Waldo? I won’t give a tinker’s damn about power and grace then. I’m going to be looking for that orange-and-white rescue whirligig in the sky. Swing low, sweet Stokes litter.
Going solo into the backcountry — or on a sailboat around Catalina, or on a mountain bike in Moab, Utah, for that matter — always implies a trade-off, the exchange of safety for reverie. Nearly always, the risk is worth it, and for all the reasons Emerson made a career of. To be alone in big-N nature is to challenge yourself, to calibrate yourself, to fully inhabit the body you were born with, to feel the chill of the absolute run up your spine.
But things can go very wrong. The patron saint of doomed solitary rapture is Chris McCandless, the subject of last year’s film “Into the Wild,” based on the Jon Krakauer book. In 1992, the smart and charismatic McCandless marched into the Alaskan bush desiring nothing more than to disconnect from civilization utterly, a transcendentalist Garbo wanting to be alone. He never walked out.
It’s my life’s ambition not to be the subject of a Krakauer book. I have kids, a wife, a cat who’d miss me terribly. But sometimes, I want to be alone too. Why? Because I have kids, a wife, a cat etc.
iPods Kill
This PSA poster is part of the New South Wales Police iPod Death Awareness Campaign. This is apparently a real crime photo and this girl is really dead I think.
Subway Idol
SHOT AT TRANSIT GLORY
BUSKERS AUDITION FOR ‘SUBWAY IDOL’
By PATRICK GALLAHUE
The search is on for the subway’s best undiscovered talent.
Fifty-five musicians performed their hearts out yesterday in an audition for “Subway Idol” – an MTA-hosted contest to earn a date singing for straphangers at some of the transit system’s most high-profile venues.
PHOTO GALLERY: Subway Idol Tryouts
“Where else in the world are you going to find every demographic represented?” said Gibran Soul, a 32-year-old tryout from Harlem.
“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
The MTA had whittled down the first 230 applicants in advance and called in the remaining musicians to duke it out for the final 20 spots in its 21-year-old Music Under New York program.
“I auditioned for ‘American Idol,’ ” said folk singer Natalie Gelman, 22. “They’re big cattle calls. This is a little more friendly.”