Talkin' Pinkeye, Coughing Fit, Hand Foot & Mouth Disease Blues

Kids, I have nothing.  Unlike RP, where I felt a post was required every day, BGB operates on the silence, exile, cunning principle, and I use great discretion when I can't compel myself to write about matters literary and quasi-literary. 

In the absence of what's left of my self-control, you would have seen BGB turn slowly into a Daddy Blog over the last few weeks & months.  And I cannot go Steve Almond on you.  Not yet.  Not for free.

So: Your pal the Rake is bone-weary & lazy.

You can help him out by addressing any of the following in the comments: the greatness of Harry Nilsson; Josh Ferris' Then We Came to the End; Carl Wilson's 33 1/3 book on Celine Dion, Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste; the new Mountain Goats record (audio!); the latest n+1; and whether or not Dwight Howard's Superman dunk was, in fact, a dunk.

Or ask me about going to see Dave Eggers, but having to settle for briefly hearing his disembodied voice.

Also, if anyone can puzzle out who gets to criticize James Wood, and how to acceptably do so, that would be a great service.  Apparently you're not allowed to be an online nobody with an opinion, and the hysterical realists are too baffled or cowed by Wood's classical gas to do anything.  Any attempts at a close textual reading will be branded character assassination.  I give up.

Comments

[Jacob Russell]

"I give up"

Please don't.

My take on Woods and "hysterical realism"... why I read, for that voice that comes alive that isn't my voice, the mind that isn't my mind laying out a world that I would never have imagined... that this is the very thing thing I should hold suspect, haul before some collective court of judges.

I don't know where to draw the line--between the reiteration of conventions, and writing that moves beyond the limits of the known world, but when it comes to judging the latter, the only sure test worth a cat's hairball--how to judge the work in the terms it creates for itself.

The imposition of external standards--however sophisticated--is a kind of intellectual fascism, an escape into the labyrinth of LAW without regard for the hormonal muck and disappointed lusts the LAW is made of.

The dead giveaway--it's all about setting limits to our pleasures, without just compensation from what we get in exchange for what we are required to give up.

Call it what you will--intellectual or aesthetic polymorphous perversity, but I'm quite ready to appreciate Melville, Dostoevsky and Delillo, each, I hope... on their own terms, and without reducing them to some leveler's generalized relativity.

[Matthew Tiffany]

Ferris' book is a sure Rooster contender.

[Pete]

Alright, here's my contribution: the greatness of Harry Nilsson is by no means diminshed by the butchering that American Idol contestant gave to "Everybody's Talking" the other night.

[Rake]

JR: I mean "I give up" trying to figure out James Wood fanboys. I think you were doing yeoman's work over at your house defending me, but you were/are up against someone who seems bound & determined to see any criticism of Wood as either invalid or a personal attack, or invalid because it's a personal attack.

Odd, that the critical faculties they admire in Wood--the ability to elegantly call bullshit, essentially--they're all too willing to deny in others.

MT: TWCTTE has legs. It's a pretty good book, although it suffers from some typical first novel issues and runs about 50 pages too long. But I lived through a period of extended dread and waves of firings in a "creative company" and so I could relate, as I'm sure many Tournament judges will.

Pete: True dat. If more evidence were needed that AmIdol--which I half-watch because of my wife--is musically retrograde, you could find it in the fact Harry Nilsson was not mentioned all night, even though two Nilsson standards were trotted out by the gentlemen. In fact, "One" (as in "...is the loneliest number"), a Nilsson original, was referred to by Randy Jackson as a "Three Dog Night joint."

[bdr]

At the risk of repeating what I commented over elsewhere re: Wood -

Wood's views of those who look down on him and those he looks down on reminds me of the old George Carlin joke about how he distinguished between assholes and jerks:

Assholes drive faster than Wood, jerks drive slower.

[CAAF]

Nilsson Schmilsson!! Sad to report: I wasn't going to watch Amidol this season but got sucked back in ("just when I thought i was out ..."). Am now rooting for Ramiele (beautician hair, sang Dusty) and that Alexandrea Lushington (suspenders, charisma, best last name in the world).

I really liked TWCTTE although I share a couple of your reservations. I found it interesting that he studied with Jim Shepard as they both have a great way of seeing their characters clearly but compassionately.

Bring us some more topics, dear Rake ...

[Rake]

CAAF: What gives? You never told me what you thought about the DFW-curated Best American Essays. Or I never told you. One of those or both.

Anyway, I think the lady of the house is rooting for Ramiele. Me, I've thrown my lot in with David Cook's punk-as-fuck combover.

Not the man, just the hair.

[CAAF]

Glad Mrs. Rake is rooting for Ramiele too. She is the awesome. I missed the first hour of the guys night, so only caught David Cook's combover in the wrap-up. A brief glimpse, but still impressive of the guy's will to have more hair and to be happy together, goddammit. The March on Rome was less determined.

I also liked (was amused by) the boy with the long Leif Garrett hair and the agreeable "I was a 16-year-old stoner" vibe but I hear he got voted off.

The DFW essays are languishing at the bottom of my TBR pile. Would value your opinion. Or you could extemp some more on the Harper's story, which I finally did read. Nice uses of "gout" and "cupreous"! Someone's been up late with the OED. It's more a scrap than a story, but it helped define for me the jolie-laide-ness quality of his writing, which is kind of ugly and then beautiful.

Like Cook's hair.