This will probably be a light week—NBA playoffs, heavy workload, and all that—but I have updated the “Greatest Hits” section. So, if you’re new here, or if you’re interested in getting a quick overview of the sorts of stuff written about at Quiet Bubble, check to your left and browse around. See you soon.
It’s gonna be a light week ‘round these parts, so I might as well lead you on to some good stuff out there:
Wax Banks gives his love to the great, great Steven Spielberg.
The Broad View hears Neko Case in concert. On a side note, CultureSpace reviews Case's new album.
Rockslinga catches a Jaime Hernandez lecture. (I wrote about Jaime's great brother here)
Long Pauses goes museum-hopping in London.
Girish gives a warm hug (with mp3 samples) to Thelonious Monk.
And, finally, Jeremiah Kipp has a two-part interview with film critic Godfrey Cheshire. If you’re curious, Cheshire is best known for this firecracker essay.
That is all.
It’s 70 degrees in January and I’ve been nursing myself back to health after a lingering bout with a sinus infection, so everything’s kinda loopy at Quiet Bubble. I’ll be back soon, I promise. For now, though, read elsewhere:
James Wood gives the his love to a great, neglected writer—Henry Green.
The New Criterion picks a fight with N+1. My politics (mostly) reflect those of the latter, but the former’s got some good points. I’m sure the folks at N+1 will respond, so this could be fun.
Girish expounds here and here on how he writes film criticism.
Long Pauses makes me want to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Armond White explains why Munich is the American movie of 2005. I’m still sorting it out in my head, but I think I agree with him.
That is all.
I’ve got a few posts in the works, but I’ve been running on empty the last two weeks. (Bronchitis, bad weather, etc.) Hence the link-happy nature of these past few days. For that, I apologize. To tide you over until I emerge from my laziness, here’s what I’ve been reading lately out there in the Super Duper Information Mega-Highway:
Over at Tingle Alley, CAAF gives her love to Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica.
CultureSpace convinces me to seek out Shopgirl.
OuterLife has a day that reminds me of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Not any specific episode, mind you–just its tone of bleak, escalating humor.
The Epoch Times has some good questions for our President on his visit to China.
Charles P. Pierce wonders why we should give a damn what Maureen Dowd thinks about anything.
The Onion’s AV Club interviews the master cartoonist/illustrator/book designer Seth.
That is all. More to come, from me this time, by Friday.
Just my luck. I have recently received new books from two of my favorite writers: Kelly Link and David Markson. Link’s tome is her latest collection of short stories, Magic for Beginners, on which we’ll be writing at length in a week or two. Markson’s is not new technically, but Going Down has been out of print for about 25 years. A quick, perhaps useless assessment of the regard in which he’s held: The only copies I’ve been able to track down cost upwards of $100, and I’ve never seen it listed for sale on eBay. In short, people don’t like letting go of him.
Anyway, my nose will be buried in these books for a while—I’ve put everything else aside, including a fascinating book on a copyright case involving Disney and underground cartoonists—so posting may be light until I resurface.
To tide all twelve of you over, here’s a new interview with Markson at Bookslut, in which he discusses Going Down and more. Those of you who are intrigued by this piece should really check out the Review of Contemporary Fiction’s long, long, long 1989 interview with him.
Over at EdRants, BondGirl interviews Link, and Strange Horizons plays 20 questions with her.
That’s all for now.
Last weekend, QB shot off fireworks in Oxford, went to Memphis on a day trip, saw two intriguing–and very different–documentaries, and lost a round of disc golf on a sweltering day. We watched old episodes of The Simpsons, won our first game of Risk in years as Stop Making Sense was projected onto a wall in the background. (David Byrne’s gyrations distracted my opponent enough for QB to avenge the “frolf” loss earlier in the day.) We played lots of Scrabble, and book-browsed. And then we drove back to Jackson, marveling at the huge patches of kudzu that swarmed over the pine trees. By our standards, it was an eventful weekend.
We did not, however, see Graceland, Too, in Holly Springs. This now marks the second time in two trips to Oxford that we failed to take in this extravaganza. We’re beginning to think we’ll never see it, even though we passed through Holly Springs on the way to Memphis. A careful QB reader has directed us to his reminiscence of the place. It’s concise, very funny, and mildly disturbing. For our faithful eight readers, it’ll have to do until QB visits the place ourselves.
I’m a Texan by birth and, reluctantly, by temperament. So, I cast a glance every now and then at the state’s political scene, even though I now live in Mississippi. At a New Year’s Eve dinner last year, L(2)’s father mentioned jovially that writer Kinky Friedman was running for governor. “Hell, he can’t be worse than what we’ve already got,” he said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “You’re probably right,” I said. But I assumed it was just a good joke.
As happens so often these days, it turns out that I was wrong. Over at the Dallas Observer, Robert Wilonsky writes a long, rollicking report on what might be the most interesting political campaign since Tanner ’88. Only this one’s for real.
In this week’s New Yorker, Margaret Talbot continues her critical assessments of prickly geniuses who create art for children. In January, she profiled master animator Hayao Miyazaki–the piece isn’t available online, but an interview about the piece is here–and now she examines nimbly the life and work of Roald Dahl. Perhaps because she’s got young children of her own, but more likely because she’s an astute, sensitive writer, Talbot balances the sweetness of the work of “children’s” artists against the often irascible, thorny personalities of those who create these works. Or, rather, she discovers the undercurrents of anxiety, acerbity, and regret beneath these cheery books and movies. (I wish she'd been alive to profile Walt Disney.) Now, if she would get around to profiling Daniel Pinkwater, I’d be a happy man.
At PopMatters, Mark Anthony Neal–who’s always worth reading–has been documenting the long, sad decline of R&B. The site just posted part 3, but you should read parts one and two first. For anyone sobered by the recent death of Luther Vandross, these essays are essential reading. Speaking of which, the Village Voice–of all places!–features a good appreciation of the singer here.
Finally, over at Tingle Alley, Carrie Frye buys a typewriter. Hijinks ensue. It’s a lovely piece.
QB is still processing last night. You see, last night we experienced on the big screen our first full-blown, three-hour Bollywood movie, complete with songs, catcalls from the audience, broad slapstick, killer funk music, an intermission, and a kick-ass dance routine led by Aishwarya Rai, who Roger Ebert has called “the most beautiful woman in the world.” (The jury’s still out, as far as QB is concerned, but there’s no question she’s in the top five.) We’ll have more to say once we’ve properly re-aligned what we think movies can do, and we’ve picked our jaws up from the floor. It was awesome.
And, in what my boss calls “the law of simultaneity,” I got home from Bunty and Babli—the movie—and immediately came across this Slate article about what is and is not allowed in Indian movies.
Until we return, spend your weekend mulling over Terry Teachout’s long essay on blogging and what it means for our culture.
For those of you who come to us by way of the magnanimous 2 Blowhards, welcome! If you came here from elsewhere, welcome!… but go visit 2 Blowhards. It’s a wonderful, humane blog with catholic interests and fresh ideas. Visit it now. You can come back and read this boilerplate later. I’m serious.
Anyway… As all eight of our regular readers may have gathered by this point, this week’s unofficial theme is food and the pleasures it can give us. Monday featured a reminiscence of a trip to the deli, and the subsequent days featured reviews of two food-related films..
Now, though, it’s time for us to stop navel-gazing and branch outward:
Daniel Pinkwater, one of America’s finest children’s-book authors and owner of a voice that reminded one writer of gorgonzola cheese, opines here on the pleasures of a good Chicago hot dog.
Just Hungry goes a long way towards explaining my mad crush on M.F.K. Fisher’s writings on food. Our Girl in Chicago goes even further.
Saucy Magazine, founded by Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin, has so much tasty goodness that I don’t know where to begin. I’m a Mississippi man now, so I say start with grits.
Like any voracious reader, I’ve got at least 25 “#1 all-time favorite writers,” and numero uno changes on an hourly basis. Joseph Mitchell is always in the top three. His 1939 classic, “All You Can Hold for Five Bucks,” is only one of his many small masterpieces.
William Langewiesche’s long, long, long profile of wine critic Robert Parker is a must-read even if you think wine is for lily-livered sissies.
We’re sure there’s plenty of great foodie blog postings that we’re missing. Let us know; brighten our day.
Dig in, folks.
