Books/Mags/Blogs

Back in the day, we had this thing called the Usenet. It was very cool, and we (and our friends) spent many long hours voyeuring on a group called alt.fun.with.luc (newsgroup still exists, though Luc has a blog now). As Californians, we didn’t get the obsession with cheese, but we got the concept. So what, you say, what does this have to do with me? Why am I reading this? Well, little grasshopper, in the day, newsgroups were a bit like blogs. Which is why we drifted into this world so readily — we were preconditioned. On one level, MediaBistro’s […]

As we predicted, our fascination with all things Star was short-lived (as could be expected with a publication we never actually opened), but this tidbit from the New York Post made us roll our eyes. Literally. At 8:30 in the morning, we were so “yeah right” about something that our muscles moved of their own accord. According to family records, this hasn’t happened since the last major earthquake awakened us from a deep slumber. What amazed us? The fact that when Bonnie Fuller toddled down to Miami to placate a certain superstar, one of her publication’s attorneys rode along so

Despite great strides made in the past decade or so, it appears the Los Angeles and New York literary communities have not merged and mingled. Sure, the Rockies deserve a lot of blame, but never underestimate the awesome dividing power of the Mississippi River. The Elegant Variation interviews Leelila Strogov (ah, there’s an editor whose name very nearly equals ours in typing difficulty), editor of Swink, a new literary magazine devoted to bringing our continent-separated literary communities together. Plus they’re dedicated to publishing good works (and, as revealed in the extensive interview, very thoughtful about submissions). By the way, Leelila:

Editor Michael Seidman clarifies literary fiction. Phew. Okay, perhaps he doesn’t answer the question (we, once again, refer back to our original thesis). But he offers another look at the subject. For every book published, a genre (call it a slot) is required. Marketing and all that. Sometimes you slide into your round hole without discernible friction, sometimes you simply don’t fit. We’d draw a conclusion here, but after a lifetime of the latter, we’d rather not. Occasional Thoughts from the Editorial Side More Summer Reading (thanks for the above link)

It comes as somewhat of a relief to us that sex was invented after our conception. The implications otherwise make the coffee curdle in our stomach. To celebrate the reissue of Sex and the Office (another topic that, in the past, would have adversely affected our enjoyment of our morning beverage…but it was that kind of office), MediaBistro interviews Helen Gurley Brown. While we’re not sure about all the advice contained in the book, we do regret not keeping a bottle of Scotch in our desk drawer. And, we suppose, we have a twinge of regret for taking short lunches.

Or something like that. We have long compared literary fiction to pornography — something you know when you see it. Mass market is easy to identify as we spend a lot of time in our grocery store. Sometimes we puzzle over the shelves of books at Vroman’s — which are literary, which are not, and which are just plain bad wrapped up in trade paperback prices? And what happens when literary fiction becomes (gasp!) popular fiction? Or happens to be sold in mass market format? Genre slippage? There is an inherent snobbery in the genre (we do so love snobbery

We think maybe someone said to Robert McCrum, “We gotta get us some of that blogging story.” And McCrum, perhaps facing a deadline and the lure of a good book, did the lazy thing. Fine. He does realize that blogs didn’t spring up last month, fully grown. And he is fully aware that the Internet has always offered innovative ways for authors to publish their work. There’s simply a lack of originality to this story…when we think of high profile blogs, we don’t think of I have a Diary (but, alas, the New Yorker does…McCrum apparently used their article as

We are continually amazed at how the universe provides. For example, we’ve spent the last week thinking about adultery (not about commiting adultery, but about the emotional and physical aspects because we wanted to get inside a character who would cheat). We’ve also thought about readers who refuse to read about adultery — rather than treating it as an exercise, they choose to avoid the subject much as they’d pretend death and destruction don’t occur. Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti takes a long, well-considered look at adultery in literature and in our culture. Her conclusions are not necessarily ours (because we’re looking at

Being an author is sort of like, well, the life of the slug we accidentally squished last night (we do feel very bad about the abrupt end of life and will do something karmically good this weekend, though we’re not sure how we’ll fit it in, what with our quarterly “we must do something about this garage” day occuring on Saturday). It seems just as you crawl out of the slush pile, you’re crushed in a new and different way. For example, a woman famous for sex and a frank blog is (we’re sure) on the verge of a book