The Rumpus.net » Rozalia Jovanovic

Rozalia Jovanovic — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:11:12 +0000

On October 27 as part of the Selected Shorts series at Symphony Space, Award-winning actresses Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under) and Christine Ebersole (Grey Gardens) lead an illustrious cast performing modern spins on classic fairy tales taken from the new anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, edited by Kate Bernheimer.

Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, hosts an evening sure to bewitch:

Selected Shorts: Fairy Tales: Classic and Reimagined

October 27th at 7pm

Symphony Space

2537 Broadway (at 95th St.)

(212) 864-5400

Tickets: $15

Dale Peck Gets Freedom: A Subjective Account of the Mischief + Mayhem Party

Rozalia Jovanovic — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:00:23 +0000

Writers came out on 9/28/2010 to celebrate the launch of Mischief + Mayhem, an imprint affiliated with OR Books and a collective of five writers: Dale Peck, Lisa Dierbeck, Joshua Furst, Choire Sicha and DW Gibson. The collective aims to publish fiction that is “formally inventive, socially irresponsible and sometimes just plain reckless without having to worry about pleasing conservative editorial boards or corporate bookstore executives.” Mischief + Mayhem’s mission is supported by Wild Rag, a webzine whose regular contributors include Ben Greenman. Following is a subjective account of my evening at the Mischief + Mayhem party.

Lisa Dierbeck gives me a cardboard mask on a stick. It’s a picture of a person with a black kerchief over his mouth. “We’ve been expecting you,” she says. She’s in a black and white striped top with something red tied around her neck. Through the door I see half-naked people dancing on black rectangular pedestals. “Your book [The Autobiography of Jenny X] is the first one you’re publishing,” I say.
“My book is the inaugural book,” she says and laughs. She is friendly. “I shouldn’t say that. My book is our first published.”

I purchase one raffle ticket because one of the prizes is the opportunity to have Dale Peck review a book of your choice.

Under the mirrored ceiling, Ben Greenman is texting. I walk up to him and say I had seen him win the CLMP Spelling Bee at the Diane von Furstenburg store in the spring.

“Dirndl?” I say.
“Colophon,” he says.

He says he’s giving a talk with the rap artist Common at the New Yorker Festival (which happened last weekend). He pulls out two pages each ripped at one edge, on which it says “Common” and has text underneath. “This is the afterward from The Anthology of Rap…. I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s my birthday,” he says. He’s pretending this is all for his birthday “including the burlesque dancers.” We look out at the dancers. There are two large chandeliers over the floor.
Ben Greenman waves his hand when he talks and hits the head of a man sitting on the couch next to us. Somehow we get on the subject of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. “Everyone’s so shocked by infidelity. And yet it’s so common. If that guy that I just hit was cheating on his girlfriend, would you be surprised?… We should write a position paper on infidelity.”

I look at Twitter. 50cent: This joint is sexy somebody gonna make a baby to this. 7:56PM.

I ask Rob Spillman what book he would have Dale Peck review. He says The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Lisa Dierbeck walks on stage. There is a poster on stage for her new book, The Autobiography of Jenny X. She reads from what sounds like a manifesto. “…further proof,” she says, “that we need art to survive.” People clap.

Joshua Furst is on stage next and says you can pre-order one of Lisa’s books or get a Mischief + Mayhem t-shirt. “They’re really fucking hot.” He is wearing a kerchief around his neck and an olive colored cap with a brim.
He says that the Mischief + Mayhem collective, of which there are five—himself, Choire Sicha, Lisa Dierbeck, Dale Peck and DW Gibson—disagree about a lot of things. “For example,” he says, “I think Rick Moody is the best writer of his generation.” People laugh. Furst is referring to the 2002 book review that Dale Peck wrote for The New Republic on Rick Moody’s book The Black Veil in which Dale Peck said, “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.” Joshua Furst says, “The creative impulse is inseparable from the political impulse.” Dale Peck lifts up the poster of The Autobiography of Jenny X and walks across the stage holding up the poster and bouncing it from side to side. “We’re looking for fiction that will fuck you up.”

“We have a few really hot go-go dancers,” says Dale Peck. He’s in a charcoal pinstripe suit with something red tied around his neck. Beige faux leather couches line the edge of the stage, the walls of which are quilted with brass studs. He says we probably didn’t know the dancers accepted tips. “Give the people some money,” he says. He thanks many people who helped with the venture including the man who made “the drawing that you’re all holding on sticks right now.”

A dancer puts a water pitcher full of bills on the pedestal on which she had been dancing and picks up empty cups and used napkins. Dollar bills are pinned against her hips with the gold straps of her thong. Her nipples are covered by gold stars.

Behind Dale Peck is a blue screen. According to a pamphlet I’ve been given, the evening’s centerpiece is a “massive literary exquisite corpse—a collectively written story that dramatizes what can happen when writers work together for a common goal.” Dale Peck apologizes for the “technical glitch” due to which the exquisite corpse game—which is supposed to involve 29 participants around the world—is off. He looks at the screen, which is covering a niche draped with a crushed velvet curtain and lit from above. Dale Peck lists some of the things Mischief + Mayhem is concerned with: “Politics, art, gender, race” and “justice.” Dale Peck says they are also concerned with “underbelly.” That we can “expect a lot of underbelly.” Choire Sicha, editor of The Awl, couldn’t be there, he says. I can’t hear why. I look at Choire Sicha’s Tweets.

Choire: I haven’t been turned away at the door of a Soho House in so long! Again I feel so youthful. Is Kim Cattrall here? 8:54PM.

Dale Peck and Lisa Dierbeck are holding cans of spray paint. “We’re giving away spray paint,” they say.
Dale Peck and Lisa Dierbeck give away other stuff.

Choire: I was jaded too soon. Best Soho House ever! 9:21PM.

They give away a photographic print by Matthew Pillsbury donated by Barbara Epler of New Directions. It’s valued at $2500.

Choire: “There’s synchronized swimming! RT@feminista09: oh no you din’t RT @Choire: I was jaded too soon. Best Soho House ever!” 9:29PM.

Three women get on stage to choose the book that Dale Peck will review. They look concerned. One holds a microphone and talks into it uncertainly. They decide that Dale Peck will negatively review Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. People in the audience collectively say, “Boo.” Dale Peck says the review will be announced on the website.

A young man, Michael Leviton, dressed neatly plays guitar and sings on stage. The go-go dancers dance on either side of him. The music is at a pace not optimal for go-go dancing.

I see Dale Peck by an area that looks like a living room, Dale Peck says Jonathan Franzen was at the bar and left when Freedom was chosen. He says he’s going to send Jonathan Franzen a friendly email. I ask Dale Peck if he has started reading Freedom yet. “Well now I’m going to have to,” he says. He had gotten the book as a gift a few days earlier.

About why the collective was started, Dale Peck says, “I’m tired of writing books that sell 5,000, 10,000 copies and being told I’m a failure by big publishing houses.” Mischief + Mayhem is a way to get the books they care about into the hands of an audience who wants to read them. The collective will publish roughly 6 books per year. “No book printed until it’s sold,” says Dale Peck.

I walked out the door and Joshua Furst is there in his kerchief and hat. A woman walks by. “I like your Zapatista outfit,” she says and pulls his kerchief lightly.
About Mischief + Mayhem Joshua says it will change the relationship between authors, readers and marketers.
“Josh do you have a cigarette,” a tall woman says to Josh. She is with another woman who is not as tall. “I have a Menthol” he says and props a cigarette on the counter. “From my fiancé’s bachelorette party.”
“That’s the first line of a novel,” says one of the women.
“The first line of Amy Sohn’s next novel,” says Joshua Furst as the two women walk out.

Choire: “Nb4r http://twitpic.com/2syhpk.” 11:16PM.

The Rumpus Summer Shakedown in NYC

Rozalia Jovanovic — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:30:26 +0000

This Monday, Sept. 13, 7-10pm at DEATH BY AUDIO, 49 S. 2nd St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn

The Rumpus Presents:

Co-sponsored by Take the Handle:

Come help us say farewell to summer with comedians MICHAEL SHOWALTER and JESSI KLEIN, readings by NICK FLYNN, SARA MARCUS, HILTON ALS, and CORRINA BAIN and a musical performance by FRANKIE ROSE AND THE OUTS.

Hosted by Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott and NY Editor Rozalia Jovanovic.

Get advance tickets here.

With comedians:

MICHAEL SHOWALTER

JESSI KLEIN

Readings by:
…

NICK FLYNN

(The Ticking is the Bomb: A Memoir)

SARA MARCUS

(Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution)

HILTON ALS

(New Yorker staff writer)

CORRINA BAIN

(writer/perfomer)

And special musical guest:

FRANKIE ROSE AND THE OUTS

And DJs Litteraire HemingYeh and Cormac McBootay

Monday Sept. 13
7-10pm

Cheap drinks!
$8

DEATH BY AUDIO
49 S. 2nd St.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Get advance tickets here:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/126747

***

Invite design by Andre da Loba

Bastille Day Soiree

Rozalia Jovanovic — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:00:49 +0000

NOON and Gigantic Present Bastille Day Soiree with Diane Williams, Rebecca Curtis, Joshua Cohen and Special Guest DJ John Pugh of Free Blood (and formerly of !!!).NOON and Gigantic

BASTILLE DAY SOIREE

PLEASE JOIN

DIANE WILLIAMS, author of It Was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-Hearted Nature and Editor of NOON

JOSHUA COHEN, author of Witz, with fiction forthcoming from Gigantic

and

REBECCA CURTIS, author of Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money and contributor to NOON

With Special Guest DJ JOHN PUGH of Free Blood (formerly of !!!)

And specially priced cocktails: The Witz, 20 Grand and Stupefaction

Bastille Day: Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Library Bar at Gild Hall
15 Gold St (at Platt St)

7:00-10:00pm

No cover, but a $5 donation to support NOON and Gigantic is appreciated

RSVP Here

***

Invite design © André da Loba

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NY Summer Concerts at MoMA PS1

Rozalia Jovanovic — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:31:53 +0000

MoMA PS1′s acclaimed summer concert series Warm Up is underway.

MoMA PS1, the exhibition space devoted to “the most experimental art in the world,” is host to this annual event—a fusion of music and art like no other in the city. And in the spirit of artful experimentation, coinciding with this year’s Warm Up is the installation “Pole Dance” by the firm SO – IL, winners of the annual Young Architects Program. After the jump, see the full unbelievable line-up of this summer’s musical events.

2010 WARM UP Schedule

July 3rd
Delorean / True Panther Sounds, Barcelona, Spain (live)
Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang / Sierra Leone/Brooklyn (live)
Glasser / True Panther Sounds, Los Angeles/New York (live)

John Talabot / Permanent Vacation/Hivern, Barcelona, Spain (DJ set)Korallreven / Acéphale Records, Sweden (DJ set)

July 10th
agnès b. presents:
Klement / Contre Coeur, France (live)
Acid Washed / Record Makers, France (live)
Veronica Vasika / Minimal Wave, New York (DJ set)

July 17th
Air France / Something In Construction/Sincerely Yours, Gothenburg, Sweden (DJ set)
Ratatat / XL Recordings, New York (DJ set)
ARP / Smalltown Supersound/RVNG Intl, USA (live)

July 24th
MoMA PS1 Greater New York presents:
JD Samson / New York (DJ set)
MEN / Brooklyn (live)
Kalup Linzy / Brooklyn (R&B, Soul, Disco DJ set)
Kalup Linzy and the Sweet, Sampled, and LeftOva / Brooklyn (live performance set)
DJ /rupture / Dutty Artz, Brooklyn (DJ set)
With surprise guests!

July 31st
Animal Collective / Domino (DJ set)
Blondes / Merok/RVNG Intl (live)
Oneohtrix Point Never / No Fun/Editions Mego, Brooklyn (live)
CFCF / Acéphale Records, Montreal (DJ set)
Babe Rainbow / Warp Records, Vancouver (live DJ set)
Prince Rama / Paw Tracks, Brooklyn (live)

August 7th
Gavin Russom / DFA Records, New York (DJ set)
Alden Tyrell / Clone Records, NL (live)
The Crystal Ark / DFA Records, New York (live)
Special Disco Version feat. James Murphy & Pat Mahoney / DFA Records, New York (DJ set)

August 14th
?uestlove (DJ set)
These Are Powers / RVNG Intl/ Dead Oceans, New York (live)
Kingdom / Fools Gold/Night Slugs, Brooklyn, New York (DJ set)
Treasure Fingers / Fools Gold, Brooklyn (DJ set)

August 21st
Peter Zummo Ensemble / New York (live)
Glissandro 70 / Constellation, Toronto, Canada (DJ set)
Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra / DFA Records, New York (live)
Tim Sweeney / Beats In Space, New York (DJ set)

August 28th
Big Freedia / New Orleans Sissy Bounce, New Orleans (live)
DJ Rusty Lazer / New Orleans (DJ set)
DJ Rashad / Juke Trax/Movel Trax/Ghettophiles, Chicago (DJ set)
GHE20 GOTHIK DJs Venus X and Brenmar / Brooklyn, New York (DJ set)

September 4th
Holy Ghost! / DFA Records, New York (live)
House of House / Whatever We Want, New York (DJ set)
DJ Mehdi / Ed Banger Records (DJ set)
Plus Special Guests TBA

MoMA PS1 installation “Pole Dance” by architects SO-IL (Photo: Wade Zimmerman)

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Notable New York, This Week 6/21 – 6/27

Rozalia Jovanovic — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:00:50 +0000

This week in New York Bret Easton Ellis and Shane Jones read, Light Industry screens “arty porn,” the musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is in its final run at the Public Theater, The Fiery Furnaces and The New Bomb Turks perform, Behind the Scenes at The Paris Review releases its summer issue with a party, NYC Pride March, and Flavorpill hosts the largest yoga event ever on the Great Lawn at Central Park.

TUESDAY 6/22: Yoga at the Great Lawn. Flavorpill brings you the largest yoga event ever. 1 teacher, 20 performers and 10,000 yoga mats. With Elena Brower leading the class, beatboxer Reggie Watts, 13 Hands, drum/dance troupe O’Nkosi Rhythms, cellist Garth Stevenson, and yogic bassist Wah. The Great Lawn at Central Park. 6:30, “Doors” at 5:30.

Barbara Rubin’s film Christmas on Earth (aka Cocks and Cunts) (1963, 29 min.) with Flaming Ears by Angela Hans Scheirl, Ursula Pürrer, and Dietmar Schipek (1991, 84 min.) After spending 3+ years constructing a socio-sexual portrait (aka professional amateur art porn) into a feature-length video titled Community Action Center, the filmmakers present an evening of womyn-identified arty “porn.” Light Industry. 177 Livingston St. $7. 7:30pm.

WEDNESDAY 6/23: Bret Easton Ellis reads from Imperial Bedrooms. Book Court. 7:00pm.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. This satirical rock musical about our seventh president returns after a sold-out run at last year’s Public LAB.

THURSDAY 6/24: Shane Jones reads from Light Boxes. McNally Jackson. 7:00pm.

Behind the Scenes at The Paris Review celebrates the release of its summer issue. Book Court. 7:00pm.

FRIDAY 6/25: The Fiery Furnaces. Brooklyn Bowl. $10. 9:00pm. Doors at 6:00pm.

SATURDAY 6/26: The New Bomb Turks reunion at the Bell House. $12. 6:00pm.

Michael Winterbottom’s film The Killer Inside Me. Adapting pulp master Jim Thompson’s novel, Winterbottom turns his masterful hand to neo-noir with the story of handsome, charming, unassuming West Texas deputy Lou Ford (a stunning Casey Affleck). Lou has a bunch of problems. Woman problems. Law enforcement problems. An ever-growing pile of murder victims—and the secret that he’s a sadist, a psychopath and a killer. Screenings of this film have been controversial due to explicit violence. IFC Center. 7:50pm.

SUNDAY 6/27: NYC Pride: The March. The March began as an annual civil rights demonstration beginning the year after the Stonewall Riots in 1970. Over the years its purpose has broadened to include recognition of the fight against AIDS and to remember those lost to illness, violence and neglect. It has also evolved to include being a celebration of the gay community. Starts at 36th Street. Noon.

***

News about notable happenings in New York can be sent to rozalia-AT-therumpus.net

Original Notable New York Illustration © André da Loba. Other images: Still from Christmas on Earth, and The Fiery Furnaces.

Notable New York, This Week 6/14 – 6/20

Rozalia Jovanovic — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:06:41 +0000

This week in New York Stephen Colbert celebrates Ulysses, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson are King and Queen of the Mermaid Parade, Heidi Julavits interviews Aimee Bender at Symphony Space, Gordon Lish MCs the NY Tyrant reading, Ann Beattie reads at Book Court, Mary Caponegro headlines the Big Other extravaganza, Light Industry presents short films curated by Jack Stevenson, CLMP colonizes Housing Works for its Giant Lit Mag Fair, and BAMcinemaFEST continues.

MONDAY 6/14: Aimee Bender and Heidi Julavits at Symphony Space. Heidi Julavits interviews Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, for the Thalia Book Club. A selection will be read by Lillo Way. 7:30-9:00pm.
Big Other Extravaganza: Mary Caponegro heads up a great night with readings by A.D. Jameson, John Dermot Woods, Shya Scanlon, Edward Mullany, John Madera, Greg Gerke, and Nicolle Elizabeth. With music by John Madera and Robert Lopez, and games, prizes, raffles and more. Pacific Standard Bar. 82 4th Avenue, Brooklyn. 7:00pm-9:00pm.

TUESDAY 6/15:

Wah Do Dem. Directed by Ben Chase and Sam Fleischner. Brooklyn hipster Max’s (Sean Bones) girlfriend (played by Norah Jones) dumps him just days before their Caribbean cruise. Bummed, but determined to make the most of it, Max sets sail alone for Jamaica, where, after having all his stuff stolen and literally missing the boat, he embarks on a crosscountry, philosophical journey that yields surprising revelations. BAM Rose Cinemas.

Movies with Roots in Hell: Jack Stevenson curates a mind-bending, all-16mm compendium of coming attractions, short subjects, clips, and fragments inspired by his comprehensive study Addicted: The Myth and Menace of Drugs in Film (2000). Spanning sixty years, the program kicks off with the Tod Browning-scripted silent detective spoof Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916)—in which Douglas Fairbanks Sr. plays always-dusted sleuth “Coke Ennyday” on a mission to battle white slavers in opium-addled Chinatown—and includes pre-Code musical numbers “Reefer Man” (1933) by Cab Calloway, “Sweet Marijuana” (1934) by Gertrud Michaels, and an early exploitation trailer for Dwain Esper’s Marijuana: Weed with Roots in Hell (1936).

WEDNESDAY 6/16: NY Tyrant Reading: In association with Park-Lit, the New York Tyrant will be holding the first outdoor reading of ParkLit’s summer reading series. With Master of Ceremonies Gordon Lish, and readers Eugene Marten and Susan Froderberg. Jackson Square Park in the West Village (On 8th Ave. and Horatio). 6:30pm.

Ann Beattie – Walks with Men. Book Court. 7:00pm.

Ulysses Celebration with Stephen Colbert. Symphony Space. 7:00pm.

THURSDAY 6/17: Celebrate Brooklyn presents Eugene Mirman and Pretty Good Friends. Prospect Park Bandshell. 8:00-10:30pm.

FRIDAY 6/18: BAMcinemaFEST presents Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright, a film that Nick Cave calls “The best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence.” BAM presents this lost classic, which first premiered at Cannes in 1971, about a young schoolteacher who tours the Australian Outback over 5 days of unforgiving terrain, gambling and sordid encounters. 9:30pm.

SATURDAY 6/19: Lou Reed is King Neptune and Laurie Anderson is Queen Mermaid at this year’s Mermaid Parade at Coney Island. 2:00pm-5:00pm.

Teenage Paparazzo. Actor and filmmaker Adrian Grenier (Entourage) explores America’s obsession with celebrity via the story of thirteen-yearold paparazzo Austin Visschedyk, a fledgling photog with a going rate of up to $2,000 a pop. 6:00pm.
SUNDAY 6/20: CLMP’s Giant LitMag Fair. The magazines may be little, but the weekend is big, big, BIG! Itʼs time once again for CLMPʼs GIANT Lit Mag Fair. Join us at Housing Works on Sunday, where lit fiends can take home armfuls of lit mags discounted more than 50% at only $2 a copy! Peruse hundreds of magazines, like AGNI, A Public Space, Canteen, Glimmer Train, Ecotone, Electric Literature, Fence, Gigantic, The Literary Review, The Oxford American, MAKE, Slice, Tin House, Zeek, and more, and hobnob with many of the editors whoʼll be there in person to meet and greet. Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.

***

News about notable happenings in New York can be sent to rozalia-AT-therumpus.net

Original Notable New York Illustration © André da Loba. Other images in order of appearance: Images from the film Wah Do Dem and Wake in Fright, respectively; image of a past Mermaid Parade at Coney Island.

Wells Tower Wins Young Lion Fiction Award

Rozalia Jovanovic — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:00:05 +0000

Wells Tower went home last night with the New York Public Library’s Young Lion Fiction Award.

Presumably because he’s been nominated for several awards and not won, a friend of his whom I spoke to at the event said that he invited her by asking if she’d want to come to an awards ceremony to see him not win. But then we agreed that being selected for The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list recently was also a good thing, like an award.

The award, founded by Young Lions Co-Chair Ethan Hawke and given annually each spring to a writer 35-and-under for a novel or collection of short stories, was also celebrating its tenth anniversary. Hollywood actors including Mark Ruffalo, Josh Hamilton and Emily Mortimer gave all-star readings to all five finalists—Jedediah Berry, Katie Kitamura, Philipp Meyer, C.E. Morgan, and Wells Tower.

Ethan Hawke, decked in an off-white suit and brown suede Clarks opened by speaking of the meaning of the award: “It’s hard to know why [writing] always matters.” The award is in part “to say it matters and to say we care.” Of the five writers who’d been selected as finalists, Hawke added to further illustrate that care, that having been a finalist means “someone fought [for you] with somebody else who didn’t like your book.” This drew laughter from the audience. He spoke off-the-cuff and said he berated himself in the car-ride over for, yet again, not preparing a speech. Yet he spoke from the heart and made an endearing entreaty for the preservation not only of the library, but of the art of fiction.

After the readings, and before presenting the award, the president of the New York Public Library, Paul LeClerc announced that in November Ethan Hawke would become a Library Lion, the highest honor the library bequeathes. He noted that over the course of the ten years, Hawke had raised roughly $140,000. “You’re the outstanding guy,” he said. LeClerc also gave Hawke a set of each of the books that had won the award in the ten years prior, each signed for him by its author.

LeClerc then proceeded to announce the winner, Wells Tower, and present him with a check for $10,000 (Hear Tower read a story at Paris Review Audio). Each of the finalists received $1000. Preceding the event was a reception with Ferrari Spumante champagne and hors d’oeuvres with many of New York’s publishing community in attendance including David Haglund, Rachel Fershleiser, Georgia Cool and Allison Lorentzen.

To the right is Ethan Hawke’s copy of C.E. Morgan’s book All the Living, which he read from. It has Hawke’s yellow Post-It Note, indicating where he should start reading. It says “Start.”

The full list of finalists for the 2010 Young Lions Fiction Award were:

Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection (The Penguin Press)
Katie Kitamura, The Longshot (Free Press)
Philipp Meyer, American Rust (Spiegel and Grau)
C.E. Morgan, All the Living (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Wells Tower, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

“A Small Party for Insiders”

Rozalia Jovanovic — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:00:03 +0000

Bottles of infused vodka were upturned last night at Russian Samovar for the return of the FSG Reading Series. With Lydia Davis and David Means slated to read, the bar on the second floor was papered with poets, writers and confederates of the publishing industry. Everyone was jammed at the front swilling vodka or scrambling for seats that were going fast. The crowd was told to spread out so the weight was “more evenly distributed” to prevent a “second floor catastrophe.” I sipped pear-infused vodka from my seat by the stairs.

I had never been to Russian Samovar, which has long been a watering hole for literary lushes and their devotees. Looking around at the low-lit lamps and silver samovars lined along tables and high ledges, I wondered which writers had plied their muses with endless ponies of colorless liquor and how far they had gotten. And how often. No one seemed particularly pie-eyed, though it was early and focus still had to be trained for an hour on our two readers. An introduction was given by a man who said former FSG editor and Paris Review editor Lorin Stein could not be there to give the introduction because he was “busy blogging.” (He was referring to The Paris Review’s new blog The Paris Review Daily). The man laughed.

***

Several years ago, around the time Lydia Davis won a MacArthur Fellowship, I had taken a workshop with her in Albany. She was still a Writer-in-Residence at the University at Albany. Twice a week I drove four hours from New York City to the campus with its Soviet-bloc style buildings and standard-issue gray sky. I don’t remember many specific details from the workshop except that the English Department felt old the way few programs feel old, with long glass tables of black-and-white pictures of women in long dresses. The room we took workshop in was carpeted and fitted with heavy wood tables that were gathered in the center to form a square around which we sat. It was the kind of room that you imagined a workshop being held in a hundred years ago.

About fifteen writers were in the class. All were from the area. There were two male science fiction writers who sat next to each other—one with a long pony-tail, one woman who had a method of writing where she wrote while falling asleep with the aim, I think, of accessing subconscious material from her partial sleep-state. There was a man in a wheel chair, and there was Shane Jones, the writer to whom I was closest in age and who I reconnected with years later on the internet (his book, Light Boxes, was just reprinted by Penguin). Both of her parents, Lydia Davis told us, had been published in The New Yorker. I can’t remember what their professions were, but the point Lydia Davis was trying to make, I think, was that her parents had an appreciation for literature and supported her. Because neither of my parents had been published in the New Yorker, I felt the sudden and acute sensation that can be described, in short, as the-cards-stacked-against-me. Still, I drove four hours there and four hours back twice weekly.

Lydia Davis was warm and soft-spoken. She often brought books to class of authors who had inspired her like Samuel Beckett and Russell Edson. She talked about how she would write out Beckett’s sentences and study their structure, their peculiar syntax. She urged us to focus like that on the sentences of writers we admired. She asked us each to bring in a copy of a story we liked and each day, one of us would present his or her story and read from it. On my day, I brought in the story “Michigan Death Trip,” from David Means’s collection The Secret Goldfish. The story is a series of vignettes about ways people die in the Midwest. The class discussed guy wires and snowmobile beheadings, kids on speed hitting each other with fluorescent lights, gun-shot adjustments, kids on codeine and wine, kids combining Valium with other substances, stoned kids, stoned kids dying in vans falling into iced lakes and regular car accidents. I think it was the man with the pony tail who said these deaths were nothing unusual and explained from knowledge the extreme boredom that exists in the Midwest from November to March. About “Highway,” Shane Jones said he liked the line “an abundance of fruit and blood and sparks spread out across the dark road.” We all agreed that was a good line.

Walking back to our respective cars that night in the enormous outdoor university parking lot, Shane Jones said the man in the wheelchair really did not like his story, seemed to vehemently hate the story. He thanked me for defending his story in class.* We talked about the spaceships and martians of another other story that was workshopped that day.

At the next visit Lydia Davis brought in David Means’s story “The Secret Goldfish” and called attention to the way the narrative is given in part from the point of view of Fish, a misunderstood goldfish. She talked about Franz Kafka, the cockroach of Metamorphosis, the story as told from the point of view of the cockroach and about Franz Kafka’s low self-esteem.

***

Last night, David Means read first, from “The Blade“—a story from his great new collection The Spot. Lydia Davis, however, did not read from The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Rather, she read a selection of unpublished writing—”all short things and all new things.” The first stories were based on dreams and waking experiences (that are dream-like), of hers and of her friends. She read one called “The Sentence and the Young Man” about a sentence in a trash can and a guy who walks by and sees it. Next was a two-part piece, “At the Bank,” and “At the Bank II.”

After the dream stories, Lydia Davis read stories that were based on letters that Gustave Flaubert wrote to his lover Louise Colet. She called the pieces “collaborations” but said it was mostly Gustave Flaubert’s material and that she “took liberties” with it. Of those, I liked most “Visit to the Dentist” about a man who passes a guillotine the day after an execution has occurred and sees fresh blood. She also read pieces that were mostly one sentence long, the writing of which, she stated, may have been a reaction to reading Marcel Proust’s long sentences. She wrote the stories while translating Swann’s Way.

She also read from a compilation of writing she calls “Alternative Biographies,” or the ways she’s been “described by mistake.” While each heading had following it a very long list, here are a few excerpts: My Name included “Clydia,” “Lydia B. Davies” and “Heather”; What I Am included “Postal patron,” “A party of one” and “Half of George’s one o’clock”; What I Have Written included “Samuel Davis is Indignant” and “Samuel Johnson is Indigent”; and Events I’ve Been Invited to included “A small party for insiders.”

***

After the reading many people went downstairs. Some left and others kept drinking. Sitting at a small table was Sara Marcus, whose book Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution is in galleys. I looked at a menu to see if I felt hungry and Sara Marcus tried to remember the name of a food that started with a “k” and sounded something like kishkas but was not kishkas. Marco Roth of n+1 talked to someone by the bar. And Lorin Stein showed up in jacket and slacks. When I walked out it was still light. A long line of people had formed beside the floor-to-ceiling windows of a club in front of which two bouncers looked out from behind red ropes.

***

* Shane still talks about how the man in the wheelchair hated his story.

Picture: Photograph from ACTIVATE, a German Magazine.

The Rumpus Interview With David Means

The Paris Review Goes Southern

Rozalia Jovanovic — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:00:36 +0000

It’s “Terry Southern Month” at The Paris Review Daily—the quarterly’s online “culture gazette,” the goal of which is to stay in touch with The Paris Review’s audience between print issues. Today, read an interview with Terry Southern from Issue 138.

Terry Southern is a good thematic choice being that he was one of the forces behind the birth of The Paris Review though maybe lesser known than its glorified founders George Plimpton, Harold L. Humes and Peter Matthiessen. And as Southern was a provocative aesthete he cut a smart fit with the post-war Paris literary crowd along with Plimpton, Susan Sontag, Henry Miller and Allen Ginsberg.

Among his many accomplishments the comic genius counted numerous screenplays—Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider, The Cincinnati Kid; novels—The Magic Christian, Blue Movie and maybe most famously Candy, an erotic novel in the picaresque tradition of a young lady’s travels, which Playboy listed among its “25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written”; and writing for Saturday Night Live.

So what can we expect from the Southern oeuvre in the days to come at The Paris Review Daily? Well, thus far, there’s been an excerpt of an interview with Southern (Issue 138) from his time in Paris in the 50s, and today, the interview in full including a discussion of making Easy Rider with Dennis Hopper. And we hear they’ll be publishing “Worm-Ball Man,” which gets editor Lorin Stein‘s vote for “funniest pitch-letter ever.” Well, in the words of Guy Grand, eccentric billionaire protagonist of The Magic Christian, That’ll make it hot for them.

The Rumpus.net » Rozalia Jovanovic

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