Well, I'm home sick. No abusing my review privileges to watch The Green Hornet tonight, and no work today.
Here is my favorite TV show I don't understand a word of: Wushu Masters—it's the taiji fighting episode! I've named all the fighters after different Our Gang characters. My favorite match is Chubby Chaney versus Alfalfa.
Have I mentioned our wedding song here before? This is it:
Olivia says it has something to do with living with me. What could she possibly mean??
I have five friggin' books coming out this year: The Greek Move Under Ground (Febbish), Starve Better (supposedly March), Sensation (May or perhaps sooner—stay tuned FOGconners!), The Damned Highway (likely July), and Insults Every Man Should Know (November). Wait till all these publishers find out that my audience is comprised completely of digital pirates and people who shoplift from independent bookstores! HAHA!
Speaking of books and stuff, I'm teaching a writing class Monday nights starting Jan 24th here in Berkeley CA. Tell your friends! I need sign-ups!
I don't have any MFA students this semester, but if you wanted to play the home game you could do worse than buy and read these three titles:
About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, & Five Interviews by Samuel R. Delany. I keep this one in the bathroom to flip through, even though I've read and reread it already. Every sentence has something interesting about writing and being a writer.
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn. My students get a lot out of this one. Even as grad students, they're not necessarily convinced that fantasy is even worth analyzing ("It's entertainment!") and are often underread in the genre of their choice. This book jumpstarts them into taking their own work seriously, even as it intimidates them into putting their heads down and actually working rather than daydreaming about Harry Potter money.
The American Writer by Jack Cady. Obviously, mileage may vary if one is not an American writer. But it's a quick history and a challenge to my students to place themselves somewhere in history instead of pretending that the stuff that leaks out of their head and onto a page got their by magic. Lots in the historiography of this book I disagree with, but much of it is very good.
Finally, Žižek on Wikileaks: we can no longer pretend we don’t know what everyone knows we know.
Lots of notes today!
Here is my favorite TV show I don't understand a word of: Wushu Masters—it's the taiji fighting episode! I've named all the fighters after different Our Gang characters. My favorite match is Chubby Chaney versus Alfalfa.
Have I mentioned our wedding song here before? This is it:
Olivia says it has something to do with living with me. What could she possibly mean??
I have five friggin' books coming out this year: The Greek Move Under Ground (Febbish), Starve Better (supposedly March), Sensation (May or perhaps sooner—stay tuned FOGconners!), The Damned Highway (likely July), and Insults Every Man Should Know (November). Wait till all these publishers find out that my audience is comprised completely of digital pirates and people who shoplift from independent bookstores! HAHA!
Speaking of books and stuff, I'm teaching a writing class Monday nights starting Jan 24th here in Berkeley CA. Tell your friends! I need sign-ups!
I don't have any MFA students this semester, but if you wanted to play the home game you could do worse than buy and read these three titles:
About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, & Five Interviews by Samuel R. Delany. I keep this one in the bathroom to flip through, even though I've read and reread it already. Every sentence has something interesting about writing and being a writer.
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn. My students get a lot out of this one. Even as grad students, they're not necessarily convinced that fantasy is even worth analyzing ("It's entertainment!") and are often underread in the genre of their choice. This book jumpstarts them into taking their own work seriously, even as it intimidates them into putting their heads down and actually working rather than daydreaming about Harry Potter money.
The American Writer by Jack Cady. Obviously, mileage may vary if one is not an American writer. But it's a quick history and a challenge to my students to place themselves somewhere in history instead of pretending that the stuff that leaks out of their head and onto a page got their by magic. Lots in the historiography of this book I disagree with, but much of it is very good.
Finally, Žižek on Wikileaks: we can no longer pretend we don’t know what everyone knows we know.
Lots of notes today!