The Happy Booker

All Around the Blogosphere

• This Week at the LBC: Don't miss the dialog between Dan Green and Derik Badman on Steve Stern's The Angel of Forgetfulness, the latest Read This! selection. Later in the week, be on the look out for appearances by Ami Greko, Stern's publicist, and Paul Slovak, his editor.  Don't touch that dial!

• A good day for contemporary fiction. On September 23, Oprah Winfrey told The New York Times that she was "moved" by the letter generated by the Word of Mouth writers (wordofmouthwriters.org) and its supporters. Oprah has announced that her book club will now feature contemporary writers representing many genres, and that she once again will be interviewing writers on her show to speak out and act on behalf of contemporary literature. (For the blog backstory, click here.)
  

• Author Leora Skolkin-Smith chats it up with Grace Paley on WBAI's Cat Café Program. Download and listen here.

• The fall issue of Brevity, the concise online journal of literary nonfiction, has hit the net. Check it out. Also: Brevity has launched a new craft section with essays on the art and craft of creative nonfiction that are certainly worth a look.
  

• Our pal Gwenda has got a brand new [Type]Pad and it's a beauty. Looking good, Ms. Bond. Looking good.
  

So, you've already heard of our Autumn pick, Steve Stern's The Angel of Forgetfulness, huh? Well, what about other other nominees—we've got Kirby Gann's Our Napolean in Rags, Lance Olsen's 10:01, and now we've got my nominee for this fall's must read book. We'll close out our auspicious list tomorrow, with a final pick, so don't forget to check back on the LBC site. There will also be week-long discussions of all the titles chosen, plus guest appearances, and more. Better start reading now if you want to join in all our litblog fun and games! xx, THB

FotHB Report—Happy Ending Reading Series

Remember way back to last week when I bugged you to go hear some amazing authors read at the Happy Ending Reading Series and you said you were too busy. Well, here's a little taste of what you missed. We have Matthew Saks to thank for this comprehensive FotHB report. Saks would like us to know that he is pursuing a Ph.D in English at Princeton University, where he lives in daily wonderment about the peculiar sociology and lifestyles of suburban New Jersey. He may also be the one person on the planet in awe of James Salter as much as we are.

Happy Ending Reading Series, by Matthew Saks

What do you get when you pack a small bar wall to wall with Jean-Paul Sartre look-alikes? An existentially agonizing wait for the bathroom, of course. Unless the bar happens to be the so-swank LES hotspot Happy Ending, in which case it means that you've attended opening night of The Happy Ending Reading Series. At which there is still a long line for the bathroom, but where you can at least while away the time flirting with the heavily bespectacled creative writing professor in front of you.

September 14th marked the season three premiere of the Happy Ending Reading Series, a bi-monthly event showcasing writers and singers. Performers include both the well-known and the wanting-to-be-known. This Wednesday's lineup just happened to include many writers who are absurdly well-known: James Salter, Jim Shepherd, Julia Slavin and Amy Hempel. The presiding spirit of the proceedings, as usual, was the very funny Amanda Stern.

The reading began with back to back readings by Amy Hempel (Reasons to Live) and Jim Shephard (Love and Hydrogen), both venerable writers. Hempel's reading displayed her trademark sensitivity to the banal and the quirky in life. For his part, Shephard read a gorgeous story about a family struggling to deal with a mentally retarded family member. The central concern of his story, reductively speaking, was the pathological methods by which fathers and sons and brothers communicate with each other when no one is really very good at communicating their feelings. Is that something that anyone can relate to, I wonder? The story was a sad tribute to passive-aggressiveness.

Next up was Julia Slavin, who told an eye-raiser about a young stuffed shirt on Wall St. who experiences the death of his mother, develops a regressively infantile attachment to his old childhood blanket, and then attempts to sodomize a girl he's after. Freudians in the audience could be seen scribbling feverishly in their notebooks.

Reading last was James Salter, one of the most esteemed living writers and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. For me, James Salter is in a camp of writers including Dickens and Fitzgerald: all three make me feel like a talentless tyro every time I read them. But James Salter also reminds me of Emerson and Milan Kundera in that he is one of the great writers of sentences. This is to say, each sentence of Salter's is a laboriously crafted, self-contained unit, standing or falling on its own, striking the listener with the singular force of, perhaps, a Zen koan. And Wednesday night he read his story accordingly, pausing at the terminus of each sentence so we could better admire each particular phrasing.

Most specially, Salter concluded his reading by sharing with us some journal entries that he had written during the composition of  Light Years (1975). It is one of the "rules" of the Happy Ending Series, see, that each performer must in the course of their act "take one public risk." Hempel and Shephard's risk, for instance, was for them to enumerate publicly their most embarrassing nicknames for their pets. But what could be more embarrassing, I ask, than revealing those youthful journal entries that show us at our most conceited and masturbatory? In one particularly delicious entry, the young Salter asks himself what he hopes to gain by publishing Light Years. His answer? Nothing less than great fame. Endless accolades. It was a risk that only a man far beyond such delusions of self-importance could take

All in all, the crowd was awed to hear him read and we'll all probably brag about it to our children one day. I plan to exaggerate the tale with lies about how I went out drinking with him afterwards and how we ended up pals.

The readings were broken up by two short musical sets featuring Sam Bisbee, who ambled onto the stage wearing three-weeks of facial hair. His hirsute appearance only strengthened my conviction that he is a younger, more likeable reincarnation of Elvis Costello. Bisbee is foremost a lyric-driven performer and so was well-received by a crowd of literary-types who surely knew a thing or two about the lyric. No doubt, Bisbee is a talented guitarist, but he leaves his rifts modestly understated and trusts his (very solid) voice to bear the weight of the songs. Go see him at the Living Room on September 17th.

As a final note, Happy Ending's opening bash Wednesday was also a fundraiser for our water-logged compatriots in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Over a thousand dollars were raised. Shortly after the reading, government agents from FEMA showed up with handcuffs, charging us with doing something productive to help people.

Fall For The Book

I will be at Fall for the Book today, appearing on a blogging panel at noon with Mr. Ron Hogan, of Beatrice fame, and poet pal Reb Livingston, the evil genius behind our Crucial Rooster colulmn and No Tell Motel.

There's also appearances by some writer guys named: Tim O'Brien, Pat Conroy, Rick Moody, Walter Mosley, Mark Winegardner and others.

Come for the Bloggers, stay for the day! See you there-- THB

Read This!

Check out it. The latest LBC title has been revealed. Our Read This! selection is bound to have people talking. Why don't you come over and join the fray. There will be guest appearances, conversation and maybe even a little controversy—who knows!

It's going to be a fine day in litblog land. Grab a cuppa and join us.  

In a Nanosecond

It's pinky slim and on our wish list. The first thing we would listen to would be the new drive time podcast over at Fulmerica Radio, featuring songs by Idlewild, Richard Hawley, Orenda Fink and more. Then we would head straight to the Bat Segundo Show, where Bret Easton Ellis stops by for a nice chat about… Bret Easton Ellis—what, you were expecting something else?— and the origins of Lunar Park.

For those who want their music and literary listening to be done live and in person, nothing but geography should keep you from Amanda Stern's Happy Ending Reading Series. If you're in NYC tonight, there's no excuse not to see this amazing literary line up, featuring James Salter (our literary crush), Jim Shephard, Julia Slavin, and Amy Hempel (another literary crush), with music from Sam Bisbee. Billed as a Benefit for New Orleans, the door will be woman-ed by a Tulane evacuee, Nina, who also happens to be Stern's little sister. Don't miss it!

Unfortunately, we will have to miss it, as we won't be in NYC tonight. (Anyone care to send us a Friend of the Happy Booker Report?). But the good news is that we'll be in Fairfax, Virginia, having drinks and sharing a hot blog dish with a side of relish with the ever-entertaining and enjoyable Mr. Ron Hogan. Tune in tomorrow for more details — and for some very big news from the LBC.

Shorts Season

No. Not these shorts! (When it comes to fashion, the good the bad, or the fugly, our Lauren is a fearless arbiter.)

We're talking about these shorts:

DC Shorts Film Festival— a report from the field by Kim Roberts

I had the pleasure of being one of the jurors for this year’s DC Shorts Film Festival.  The Festival takes place from September 16 through 18, with 7 screenings over the weekend, and an average of 9 films per screening.  Films range in length from less than a minute (55 seconds to be precise) to 30 minutes.  Twenty per cent of films shown are by local filmmakers.

In my admittedly biased opinion, this will be a fabulous event!  This year’s DC Shorts features films from the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany. Ireland, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Spain.  There’s a film in Amharic (“Shigara”), a film about a Filipino-American entering that most American of game show trials (“The Fabulous Price is Right”) films about teenagers surfing in Panama (“HBHS Panama Surf Trip”) and an urban gang of moped riders in Richmond (“Hell’s Satans”).  There are comedies, dramas, animated films, and documentaries.

As for the judging: my complete lack of experience in filmmaking was deemed unimportant.  A group of us met successive Monday nights through the summer in the home of Jon Gann, the festival co-curator.  Each film we watched was scored up to 25 points in 4 categories: content, style, orginality, and technical expertise.  I found myself taking a harder look at characterization and plot and dialogue--typical writer’s obsessions, right?--than some of my fellow judges, who concentrated more on such mere bagatelles as sound quality and visual consistency.

One thing really struck me: with the price of filmmaking equipment coming down and the technical options widening, this is an increasingly accessible art form.  There were a large number of first-time filmmakers, which made for an exciting and dynamic mix at its best.  Which is not to say that we picked amateurish productions.  The short format is very hard to do well!  It takes good editing and a real control over subject matter.   The filmmaker must have a keen sense of what is necessary and what is extraneous.  I imagine it must use some of the same critical skills as a poet uses in her writing and editing process.  And with an incredible 414% increase in entries over last year (the first year of the festival), competition was fierce.  And yet several first-timers made it through the cut.

So let me reveal what I believe to be the highlights of the festival.  At the top of my list is “Soap Opera” by a local  filmmaker, Zachary Brewster-Geisz.  Mozart is surely rolling over in his grave--but I don’t care.  In this animated aria from “Don Giovanni,” set in a bathroom, the shampoo and soap and sponge sing gloriously in Italian--with subtitles.  It’s hilarious.  Brewster-Geisz is the only filmmaker who got two films accepted: his animated “<ESC>,” about a computer keyboard, is notable as the shortest film in the festival.

She's Baaack!

Our most Crucial Rooster is back— tanned, rested and ready to take us through another month of required reading in the land of poetry. As far as we're concerned, the talented and vibrant Ms. Livingston has had far too much fun this summer— though we must admit, we do enjoy living vicariously through her. As for us, we're still here, working, writing, and dragging the kids to the local library for The Washington Post. Is it happy hour yet? TGIF, folks. Enjoy.

Crucial Rooster: Poetry Column by Reb Livingston

After a month of too much traveling, too much spending, too much food it’s time to downsize, consume a little less.  My ass is big enough to cook a turkey inside.  I need to think smaller. 

Am I talking about a new diet?  Dusting off the old Thigh Master?  Hell no, I’m talking about the premiere issue of The Tiny (Editors: Gina Myers and Gabriella Torres, $8).  It’s one of those poetry magazines that highlight young up-and-coming poets.  You know, one of those magazines I’m always waving my pom poms for.  I knew I was going to love this publication as soon as I scanned the table of contents because Karl Parker is among the many notable poets.  Why more people don’t know Karl Parker’s work is beyond me. 

Let me give you a little background on Karl.  Actually it’s not really his background, but my background and how I came to discover him.  Think of me as the Christopher Columbus of poetry – sure there were already thousands of people who already knew about “America” cause they were living there, but it was new to Columbus and that’s enough for the history books. 

In 1993 my new boyfriend (and now husband) drove me to my cousin Michael’s dinner party in Pittsburgh.  The guest list was comprised of Michael’s friends and fellow Pitt students and two dorks from Carnegie Mellon that Michael was obligated to invite being I was kin.  Over our spaghetti and Italian sausage I briefly chatted with a high strung fellow with sloppy hair.  That was Karl.  The rest of the evening I chatted with some girl who told me about this one CMU guy she just met a dance club who turned out to be my recent boyfriend.  The conversation went something like this: 

“You dated a gay guy for two years?” 
“Not gay.  He just likes to dance and wears a leather jacket.” 
“How serious of a drug user is he?” 
“He doesn’t use drugs – not at all.  Never even tried them.  He’s as clean as they come.  He’s just naturally spacey like that.” 

My most memorable impression from that evening was the look she gave, the look of “You clueless, naïve, dumb girl.”

So my one and only opportunity to talk with Karl Parker, one of the best young poets writing today, was squandered arguing over my ex-boyfriend’s sexual orientation. 

Story of my life.

In 2001 I sent my book manuscript to my cousin Michael.  He responded a few weeks later with “Enclosed is my friend Karl Parker’s manuscript (you met him at my dinner party).  You should read his poems.  They’re very good.”  I was jealous that my cousin thought this guy Karl’s poems were very good so his manuscript sat on my desk unread for months.  Eventually I got around to reading it and thought, OK, these are pretty damn good poems, I’ll have to keep my eye out for this guy.

I never stumbled across his work again.  In 2004 with Molly Arden, I launched our own poetry journal, No Tell Motel, and invited Karl to submit work.  I asked for 5-8 poems, he sent 50.  Normally this would have pissed me off.  Actually, it did piss me off, but only for a moment.  As soon as I started reading his poems I had a new problem.  Which ones would I take?  I wanted all of them.  You see Karl writes poems that make me want to track him down and make out with him.  His poems are smart and playful and tender and sad.  They have that fall-in-love inducing vulnerability.

You’re thinking to yourself, “I’ve read this far and still know nothing about the new poetry magazine called The Tiny and practically nothing about Karl Parker and his work.  The only thing I know is that the chick writing this has a penchant for pretty boys and kissing strangers.” 

And I’m telling you you’re absolutely wrong on all accounts.  Are you not paying attention to a word I’ve written?  You’re thinking “so what’s the deal with that ex-boyfriend?”  You’re getting sidetracked, not paying attention, just like I wasn’t paying attention 1993.  It doesn’t matter if I truly knew my ex-boyfriend or spent 2 years in an oblivious la-la beard land mistaking Ecstasy for Tic Tacs.  What’s important is ordering your copy of The Tiny right now so you can read Karl’s three poems, especially “River Nocturne” which ends:

So:  we have a river.  I find the fact moving in itself.  Used to metabolize the soil, and all.  Once some local kids exploded overseas.  And feeling’s like a numb limb.  Such and so many quiet leafy ways to die, to blow away.  Birdsounds everywhere weave in and out of these thoughts, most at home toward morning.  Rust-red and pink ripples, alive.

Next you need to read the rest of the poems and make your own list of which poets you want to track down and kiss.  It might be a long list, some of the contributors to this issue are Katey Nicoia, Hazel McClure, Jim Behrle, Maggie Nelson, Aaron Tieger, Daniel Nester, Danielle Pafunda and many others.

If you’re in the DC area this Saturday, September 10, you can hear The Tiny contributors Erica Kaufman, Shafer Hall, Maureen Thorson and Mark Lamoureux read at the Ruthless Grip Reading Series at the Washington Printmakers Gallery at 7:30 p.m.  The reading series is hosted by Lorraine Graham, Kaplan Harris and M Magnus.

But please, whatever you do don’t go up and kiss any of these poets unless you get his or her explicit permission.  I can’t be held responsible for your ass thrashing or night in the pokey.  Remember, the point of writing these lists is the fantasy not actually going through with it.

Oh, and what about my ex-boyfriend?  Where is he now?  Did you think I’d really leave you hanging?  He’s married with a one year old working a job that requires him to pee in a cup on a regular basis.  In your face! girl whose name I don’t remember and face I can no longer visualize.

POSTSCRIPT:  Consider helping some of the smaller, younger victims of Katrina by donating money to First Book.

A Few Good Links

We apologize for the paucity of postings of late. But we're back, we're rested, and we're ready to blog. We've got a few Friends of the Happy Booker posts in the pipeline and hopefully a Crucial Rooster for you from Reb, our globetrotting poet pal.

We start with important Katrina Links. Here are a few exceptional sites:

The Artsjournal.com has "Hurricane Katrina & The Arts"  page with links to sites about the effects of Katrina on the arts community.

Artsjournal.com hosts "About Last Night," the wonderful blog by Terry Teachout and Our Girl in Chicago, Laura Demanski. ALN has put together a comprehensive list of  bloggers who have been posting from/near/about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

There is also an aggregator site for Katrina-related links — Instapundit shows up as one of its most linked to sites.

MoveOn.org just launched a website, www.hurricanehousing.org, to connect your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to wait out the storm. You can post your offer of housing (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch) or search there for housing if you need it. MoveOn will pass requests from hurricane victims or relief agencies on to volunteer hosts, who can decide whether or not to respond to a particular request. The host remains anonymous until they reply to someone looking for housing.

A little late, but for those who missed it here's Richard Ford 's moving op-ed about New Orleans in The New York Times.

This in yesterday from Dan Wickett:

"For those looking maybe for a specific face in the crowd – EWN’er Blake Bailey, who made it through a few hurricanes in Florida the last couple of years while his wife was obtaining a degree at the University of Florida, recently moved to New Orleans. Because he and his wife have a one year old little girl, they took up the offer of some friends last Saturday and packed up a few items (for Blake, this amounts to three shirts, toiletries, and his laptop) and drove North out of the range of the damage.  However, after the levee broke, watching the news, Blake noticed a street sign from his neighborhood, with water only inches away from the top of the sign and they know they’ve lost everything (and don’t have flood insurance as they were told they lived in a “low-risk” zone). Included in that loss is Blake’s library – if any of you authors out there have spare copies of your books, or perhaps lit journals with your work in it and wouldn’t mind helping the Bailey’s rebuild their library, they can be sent to Blake Bailey, c/o Marlies Bailey, Century 21, 223 N. Interstate Drive, Norman, OK, 73069."

And for those local to DC, here's a list of volunteer efforts in the Washington region

The Red Cross of the National Capital Area needs approximately 150 volunteers per day to staff a call center in the metropolitan area to assist those impacted by the hurricane.  Contact [email protected].  Or, contact your local volunteer center (e.g., Greater DC Cares at http://www.dc-cares.org/) or call 1-800-VOLUNTEER.

TouchDC.org will soon post coverage of efforts by nonprofits in our region to support the relief and recovery effort.  If your organization has an effort underway contact TouchDC's Eric Rigaud at [email protected].

Join a VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster): Nonprofit organizations can join the DC, Maryland or Northern Virginia.  For more info, visit: www.nvoad.org.

The National Capital Region launched an emergency preparedness campaign which urges residents to "BE READY.  MAKE A PLAN."  For more information, visit www.makeaplan.org, check out the link for the plan at: http://www.makeaplan.org/preparedness_plan.pdf.  To become trained to help with the campaign send an email [email protected].

For more information about nonprofit coordination plans in the Washington region download Working Together When the Worst Happens: Nonprofit Emergency Preparedness in the National Capital Region from www.nonprofitroundtable.org.