David Foster Wallace, Dies at 46

Sadly, I learned from of all places a friend's Facebook status that one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, died at age of 46 of an apparent suicide this past weekend.

The NYT obit on DFW is a well written, well researched piece on the author. As they put it, he wrote "prodigiously observant, exuberantly plotted, grammatically and etymologically challenging, philosophically probing and culturally hyper-contemporary novels, stories and essays." That is quite a mouthful but I couldn't agree more.

Infinite Jest, the book that he is most well known for, is one of my all time favorite books. This is due in large part to the effort I expended and the difficulty I had in reading it coupled with the satisfaction I gained by finishing it. I would equate the experience with climbing an arduously steep and rugged mountain which at its apex gives way to the most extraordinary view imaginable. Other than The Silmarillion, which took me three attempts to read, I cannot recall a bigger literary challenge that I faced and won.

Not only was he a terrifically inventive novelist, he a great essayist (which is a dying - no pun intended - art) as well. When I went to the US Open for the first time last year to see Andy Roddick play Roger Federer, I brought DFW 6,000 plus word essay from 2006 titled Federer as Religious Experience with me to re-read on the train. Luckily the train ride took awhile because like all DFW pieces, it was dense, fun and damn good.

As Gawker notes, this terrible occurance was sort of preordained. In a 2005 speech at Kenyon College implied, he was not unfamiliar with the heft of existence:

[L]earning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

Thanks Dahlia for inspiring me to read Infinite Jest.

Goodbye David. The world just lost a brilliant mind.

Anathem is Now At a Store Near You

Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem is now in stores and I cannot wait to devour every one of its yummy 960 pages.

Back in August Wired wrote a great profile on Stephenson which I suggest you read. I learned quite a bit about him that I did not already know and found it quite interesting.

If you are thinking to yourself right now "Who is Neal Stephenson?" and/or you haven't read any of his other books, like Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon or the three book Baroque Cycle, you are seriously missing out on some fantastic literature. Along with King and Gaiman, Stephenson is hands down my favorite living author. Please do not make me rank them. Please.

To get all sorts of fired up about Anathem, please watch the interview below. In it Neal talks about the themes that make up his new novel:

Last but not least, check out this blurb from Cryptonomicon that I posted back when I was just starting this blog.

Some via Neu

I've Got A Fever And The Doctor Ordered More Dark Tower

Stephen King's site today informed me that Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1 will be arriving in stores at 12:01 AM, March 5th, 2008 (at participating comic stores). The writing crew of Robin Furth & Peter David and artists Jae Lee & Richard Isanove will be joined by special guest variant cover artist (and Marvel Editor-In-Chief) Joe Quesada to create the second limited series inspired by Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series.

Just like the first one, The Gunslinger Born, this limited series will be overseen by Stephen King himself. Just like the first one, Dark Tower: The Long Road Home explores a chapter in Roland's life only hinted at in the novels. Just like the first one, I expect it to be friggin sweet, kick total ass and to be just what the doctor ordered. One can never get enough of the Dark Tower mythos - not me at least.

Is it March yet?

Jonathan Selwood: Who he is and why I interviewed him

Mr. Selwood is an author who I had the pleasure of interviewing via email after I read his debut novel The Pinball Theory of the Apocalypse. One Amazon review said, "In short, this isn't just a satire: it's a portrait of a world in constant flux" and I would tend to agree. His work is humorous and slightly bizarre. The book itself is a very quick read - it is under 200 pages and it features a mid-sized font and margins one could consider generous so you should be able to read it in a few trips to and from work on the subway. Maybe you'll want to pick it up after you read the 10 questions that I asked him along with his answers:

JL: Since you are a male, did you find it difficult to write the novel considering it has a female protagonist and the story is told from her point of view?

JS: Oddly enough, no. At the time I started writing the book, all the artists I knew personally were women, so it just seemed natural to have a female protagonist. It wasn't until after I finished the first draft that it even occurred to me that it's considered odd for a man to write in the first person as a woman. But by then, it was too late.

JL: Why does Isabel’s father’s Pinball Theory of the Apocalypse play such a small role in the story considering it is the title of the book?

JS: It might only be referred to a few times in the novel, but I think it does play a big (if less obvious) role in showing the absurdity of thinking that art—or anything else, for that matter—can be "timeless." Of course, for anyone who wants more, the whole theory is explained at his website, pinballapocalypse.com.

JL: What type of statement are you trying to make about modern society, especially as it relates to the arts and the artist?

JS: Basically, I'm trying to show that we've moved as a society way beyond the simple concept of "selling out." How do you maintain your integrity as an artist in a world where everything has already been "sold?"

JL: How much of the book mirrors your ascent as a full-time artist, especially as it relates to the support Isabel’s family provides and the questions her father asks her and she asks herself?

JS: My parents have been very supportive of my choice to be a writer, but Isabel really isn't my mirror. You can draw a few parallels, but the art world and the literary world are pretty distinct.

JL: If you were to describe your writing style, what three word term would you use? For instance, I have termed my friend’s paintings to be “Chunky Abstract Realism.”

JS: Lapsed Evangelical Absurdism.

JL: Are there future Isabel Raven novels planned? This one seemed to end abruptly and it wasn’t just due to the story’s length – she entered the gallery I could just hear the director somewhere yelling “scene.”

JS: With a Hollywood novel, there's always room for a sequel (or even a prequel). Haven't planned one yet, though.

JL: Having grown up in Southern California, are you looking forward to raising a family there?

JS: Right now I'm really loving Oregon, but I do tend to get footloose, so you never know. I had a lot of fun down there on my book tour.

JL: Turning our focus back East to your time in New York City, what do you most fondly remember about New York? What do you miss the most now that you live in Portland? What do you miss the least?

JS: I think the thing I loved the most about living in NYC was the energy. Whenever I felt creatively exhausted, I'd just walk around for an hour or so, and feel recharged. I miss that. I don't miss the heat and malt liquor piss stench of a subway station in the summer.

JL: What are your future plans over the next five years? What projects are in the works? What other books / stories do you have on the way?

JS: I have another novel I'm working on, but I'm also working on some personal essays. I sorta switch back and forth depending on my mood. Every time I make a five year plan, it goes all to hell. Writing is not the most predictable profession.

JL: Since you are a writer, what would you like to be written as your epitaph?

JS: Good riddance to bad rubbish.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Dating

Recently I was sent a humor piece titled "The Seven Deadly Sins of Dating" written by Jonathan Selwood which was definitely good enough to share. Lust, envy, wrath, gluttony, pride, greed and sloth have never been so funny. If only "Seven" was like this - Brad Pitt would have been crying out of laughter, not because his wife's head was chopped off (oh no - did I just ruin the movie for you? Pretend this post never happened...)

Enjoy the entire piece after the jump.

Is your list of sexual conquests stuck in the low three figures? Do you have less than ten amateur sex tapes currently circulating on the Internet? Do you feel embarrassed employing fellatio as your primary method of career advancement?

You are not alone. There are literally tens of women worldwide who are just as virtuous as you. But despair not, Hollywood native Jonathan Selwood's guide to the Seven Deadly Sins of Dating will have you rivaling Paris Hilton in no time.

LUST

Outside of binge drinking, lust is probably the single most important dating tool a woman has. Whether you're looking for a drunken quickie in the bathroom stall, or a long-term commitment lasting an hour or more, lust is what ultimately keeps your ankles up by your ears.

Sadly, the new millennium has found this "sleaziest of sins" to be in serious decline. Believe it or not, the average 18-34 year-old man is 38% less lusty than he was only ten years ago*. The unlikely culprit? You. And by "you," I don't mean women in general, I mean Britney Spears.

Again and again, Britney is celebrated in the international tabloid press for bravely facing the paparazzi sans panties. And as usual, the tabloids have shown themselves to be little more than a propaganda mouth piece for the all-powerful Hollywood publicity machine—after all, a true slut wouldn't have been wearing anything at all. Tabloids j'accuse!

My extensive (one might even say intrusive) research on the subject suggests that by going stark naked in public the average young woman will increase the ambient lust factor by a full 3.8%-4.3%. That's 3.8%-4.3% more random strangers asking you to accompany them behind the Dumpster, and 3.8%-4.3% more notches in the ole belt (which, of course, you won't need anymore).

*Yale Journal of Wildly Unsubstantiated Claims, Spring, 2006

ENVY

Despite their excess facial hair and musky scent, men are emotionally fragile creatures who need to be constantly—even relentlessly—reminded that you care. And if our brave astronauts have taught us anything over the last few years, it's that nothing shows you care like driving cross-country while wearing a diaper.

WRATH

As might be expected, envy segues nicely into wrath. No man feels truly loved until he's had his genitalia threatened by kitchen shears. Remember to mail a pair in advance to any romantic vacation spots you might be visiting, because they don't let you carry them on the airplane anymore.

In addition, while I would certainly never personally endorse dousing your romantic rivals in gasoline and lighting them on fire, it's a good start. Better yet, combat global warming by using biodiesel.

GLUTTONY

I'm not saying that excess food, alcohol, and drugs won't potentially lead to obesity, hangovers, chronic illness, public humiliation, mental impairment, misery, and an early grave. All I'm saying is that it worked for Anna Nicole.

PRIDE

Are you proud to be black? Proud to be an American? Or perhaps even the proud parent of an honor student? Well then you're already there!

If, on the other hand, you're like most women (i.e., trapped in an overflowing latrine of self-loathing), pride might be a little harder to come by. Personally, I recommend trying to be proud of the little things—like the time you wore a tube top to the opera.

With practice, you might even be able to perform your thrice-nightly "walk of shame" without sobbing uncontrollably.

GREED

Greed is passion. Greed is desire. It's about flipping the bird to convention, looking out for your own best interest, and living your life the way you want to.

That's why I recommend becoming a prostitute.

SLOTH

What ever happened to body hair? Remember the Eighties when Tom Selleck's shag-rug of a chest made the girls swoon and Brooke Shield's eyebrows covered 90% of her forehead? Go back another decade, and there's the original Joy of Sex--a book so hairy you need an Epilady just to read it. Hell, remember when Elliott Gould was a sex symbol? (Well, I don't, but he was.)

Call them hypocritical filthy patchouli-reeking sellouts, but you have to admit, the hippies were lazy. Why not follow their slothful example and return to that fabled Summer of Love?

I say we stop with the plucking and get back to the f#!%ing. We're all descended from lice-ridden monkeys; it's time we started to look the part. Let those eyebrows unify. Let that troublesome leg stubble become a carefree winter pelt. Give that antiperspirant something to clump on to…

And remember, ladies, nothing says "Go!" like a 'fro down below.

Jonathan Selwood grew up in Hollywood and is the author of the forthcoming novel, The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse (Harper Perennial, August 2007.) He received an M.F.A. from Columbia University and now lives in Portland, Oregon.

New Tolkien! New Tolkien!

The first new book in almost 30 years by J.R.R. Tolkien (since 1977's Silmarillion) has been published and as George put it, "It's like he's Tupac!" I mean, Tolkien passed away in 1973 and while the Silmarillion was published posthumously, it was only 4 years after his death. Now comes The Children of Hurin, almost 35 years after died! Tupac indeed. Why it took his son this long to edit and publish it, I'll never know. I hope against all hope that it's not because it kind of sucks and Christopher just needs money.

Here is brief blurb courtesy of Barnes & Noble:

The book was completed by his son, Christopher Tolkien, and illustrated by renowned artist Alan Lee. The Children of Húrin takes readers to an area of Middle-earth that was to be drowned before Hobbits ever appeared, at a time when the great enemies were still the fallen Vala, Morgoth, and Sauren.

This is the epic tale of Húrin (the man who defied Morgoth's force of evil), his family's destiny, and his son Turin Turambar's travails through the lost world of Beleriand. Fans will be reunited with Elves and Men, Dragons and Dwarves, and Eagles and Orcs in this stirring tale.

Um, I CANNOT WAIT TO READ THIS BOOK!!!

Here is a pic of the book:

The Legacies of the Rich and Famous

Sir Richard Branson just stepped up big time today by saying that all profits from his five airlines and train company, projected to be $3 billion through the next 10 years, would be invested in developing energy sources that do not contribute to global warming. He said this during the Clinton Global Initiative, a three-day meeting in Manhattan that amounts to a competitive festival of philanthropy run by former President Bill Clinton. I say simply, "Thank friggen G-d!"

Please note that this donation comes in the same calendar year as when Bill Gates pledged a whopping $40 billion to his Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. This amount was then quickly matched by Warren Buffet, the world's 2nd richest man, who will donate 85 percent of his fortune amassed from stock in the Berkshire Hathaway company, worht today around $37 billion, to five foundations. Four are run by his kids and the last, the aforementioned B&MG Foundation, will receive about 5/6 of the 85 percent, or about $31 billion. So, the B&MG foundation will have a budget of around $70 billion over time while Branson is funding a foundation that it seems will have around $30 billion.

As Billy C put it, “No matter how cynical you are, that’s serious money.” Thank g-d someone is finally stepping up and doing something good in this world. If the world's governments are too busy fucking up diplomacy, trashing international treaties, starting wars, spreading lies and other assorted nonsense to do something good for their citizens, its nice that the rich are giving back our money in a sense (they got rich through us - we use the goods and services they own and/or control). I have always believed that we needed a Vanderbuilt/Carnegie to step in and help out the world's ills. Now its happening and I'm thrilled - if Bill, Warren and Richard want to down in history as the men that saved the planet, they'll be happy to know that I have a Windows box at home, love the Geico gecko and fly Virgin Atlantic whenever I can.

New Tolkien Book

CNN is reporting that "Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on "The Children of Hurin," an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of "The Children of Hurin," which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and other works, have been published before."

More stories with Gimli? I hope so....dwarves rock!

Via Slashdot

Unfinished Tolkien work to be published in '07 from the AP:

NEW YORK (AP) -- An unfinished tale by J.R.R. Tolkien has been edited by his son into a completed work and will be released next spring, the U.S. and British publishers announced Monday.

Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on "The Children of Hurin," an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of "The Children of Hurin," which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and other works, have been published before.

"It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the 'Children of Hurin' as an independent work, between its own covers," Christopher Tolkien said in a statement.

The new book will be published by Houghton Mifflin in the United States and HarperCollins in England.

J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings Trilogy" has sold more than 50 million copies and was also adapted into a blockbuster, Academy Award-winning trio of films. A stage version is scheduled to open next year.

Imaginary Menagerie

In the end, it was
as in the beginning; no one
learned anything. What was alive
was killed and posed,
stuffed, put on display. The remaining live
wandered around amongst the dead,
wondering what they looked like
when they were alive and in the positions
in which they were now posed, which the live
could have witnessed in life
had they not killed
the now
dead

- Barbara Tran

Thoughts on Memory

The NY Times featured an interesting article about how a diary, written between 1929 and 1934 by a teenage girl who aged from 15 to 19 at that time, was lost and then found again on a NY city street and eventually returned to the author, now 95 and alive in CT. The title of the article is "Speak, Memory" and those two words are like the magic words of a spell: "Speak memory. Tell me what was. Tell me what I hoped would be."

This article really resonated with me because I have always loved writing down my thoughts. I do not write with enough frequency to say I keep an "active" journal and my writing career has been one of constant stops and starts, but I write enough that I feel one can paint a decent portrait of me over time, especially from my early teenage years until the present day. One could very well make the case that this blog is an active journal, though it sometimes though rarely offers the insights that journals made famous. I think my urge to write exists because I love history and this is my life, its mine and only mine, it is unique and will only happen once, and if I do not chronicle it then who will? One day I would like to look back and see what happened. If I am not the one looking back, then so be it.

Recently, when I was talking to my sister about how she should keep a journal of her time in Europe, I looked back on what I wrote the week of 9/11/01 and then what I wrote one year later on the first anniversary of that tragedy. It was odd: some tidbits that are in my head were not down as zeros and ones yet some tidbits that are no longer in my head were blinking back at me, almost daring me to explain how I forget them. The same is true for my time in London. I obviously re-read my journal from that time too and somehow I forgot the crushing sense of loneliness I sometimes felt, that is I forgot it until I re-read my journal and saw that it was mentioned again and again. Then again, maybe I only wrote when I was lonely.

Keeping a journal, keeping a blog, writing down your thoughts - all of these exercises create a written history which can be dangerous. Sometimes the view back can be shocking, like when, under the guise of writing a memoir that is still yet to be written, I took back from Barbara all the notes that I wrote to her in high school. She had saved them all, or most of them, and these notes were filled with the machinations of my teenage life, from the tiny details to the larger frustrations, hopes, dreams and fears. When I re-read the words I wrote, it seemed as if the author was an alien; he was a self-deprecating loser and almost 180 degrees from the cocky frat guy that I was at the time. I couldn't fathom how the person reading the note was the same person who wrote it. I was angry at my former self and shameful that I was him once. Yet, I am neither of those two men now either - I'm a newer version, the third, or maybe a fourth, or tenth, or hundreth different incarnation since then. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, and who I'll be?

I often wonder about all the memories I've had and lost, the things I knew but do not even realize I knew because I've forgotten that I knew. My fear is that I forgot something important, but if it's important, why would I forget? Considering I've forgotten to call my grandmother on her birthday after reminding myself 20 times that day to do so, I'm sure that my fear is valid. Maybe Barbara won't really remember how much of a depressed, no-confidence kid I was in high school now that I have those notes, the written proof, and she only has her memory, which fades like a photograph over time. Maybe she'll only remember how I said, "Jeff is dead, I killed him" when she once admonished me to "stop being JJ" many years after those notes were written. Someone once said, "History is written by the victorious." In many ways, that person was right.

The one thing that resonated with me the most about the article was the last thought uttered by Florence Wolfson (the diary's author): “Where did all of that creativity go?” she wondered aloud as she pondered the newly rediscovered story of her youth. “If I was true to myself, would I have ended up in Westport?” I have been wondering that myself lately. Where did my creativity go? It not around as much as it used to, that's for damn sure. I refuse to accept that the magic is gone because I am older. There are people 2x and 3x my age who still feel the presence of magic about in their world. We are getting to different waters now though and this is the fodder for another post at another time. What I do know is that I should look back enough to ensure I'm moving in the right direction, yet I should be wary of looking back too much, for if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Again, after the jump feel free to read to the Times article.

Speak, Memory

By Lily Koppel. Published on July 16, 2006

“THIS book belongs to ...,” reads the frontispiece of the little red diary, followed by the words “Florence Wolfson” scrawled in faded black ink. Inside the worn leather cover, in brief, breathless dispatches written on gold-edged pages, the journal recorded five years of the life and times of a smart and headstrong New York teenager, a girl who loved Balzac, Central Park and male and female lovers with equal abandon.

Tucked inside the journal, like a pressed flower, is a yellowed clipping from a Yiddish newspaper, noting that at age 15 the diary’s owner was awarded a New York State Regents college scholarship. The photograph of a girl with huge, soulful eyes and marcelled blond hair atop a heart-shaped face stares out of the brittle scrap of newsprint.

The diary was a gift for her 14th birthday, on Aug. 11, 1929, and she wrote a few lines faithfully, every day, until she turned 19. Then, like so many relics of time past, it was forgotten.

With its tarnished latch unlocked, the diary lay silent for more than half a century inside an old steamer trunk, plastered with vintage travel stickers that evoke the glamorous golden age of ocean liner voyages. The trunk in turn languished in the basement of 98 Riverside Drive, an orange brick apartment house at 82nd Street, until October 2003, when the management decided it was time to clear out the storage area.

The trunk and its sisters were carted to a waiting Dumpster, and as is often the case in New York, trash and treasure were bedfellows. Some passers-by jimmied open the locks of the trunks and pried apart their sides, in search of old money. Others stared transfixed at the treasures spilling from the warped cedar drawers: a red kimono; a beaded rose flapper dress; a cloth-bound volume of Tennyson’s poems; the top half of a baby’s red sweater still hanging from its knitting needles. A single limp silk glove fluttered like a small flag.

NEW YORK is a city threaded with castoffs. Among the most haunting remnants of 9/11 were scraps of paper from the World Trade Center that floated down into brownstone gardens miles away. Even old tradesmen’s signs that sometimes swim into view like apparitions when a building next door is torn down are unexpectedly evocative.

But the little diary seems a particularly eloquent survivor of another age. It is as if a corsage once pinned to the dress of a young girl was preserved in amber for three quarters of a century, its faded ribbons still intact, the scent still lingering on its petals.

Through a fortuitous chain of events, the diary got a chance to tell its story.

A young building engineer who worked at 98 Riverside Drive rescued the book, wrapped it in a plastic Zabar’s bag, and stashed it in his locker. He showed the book to me, and I shared it with a New York lawyer named Charles Eric Gordon (license plate “Sleuth”), who specializes in tracking down missing persons.

After a few weeks of investigation, Mr. Gordon struck gold. Searching the city’s birth records, he discovered only one New Yorker of the proper age named Florence Wolfson, who was born in Manhattan on Aug. 11, 1915, to a pair of Russian immigrants who had come to the city in the early 20th century.

Florence’s father, Daniel, a doctor from a family of prominent rabbis, had a busy medical practice. Her mother, Rebecca, owned a couture shop on Madison Avenue, where she stitched up frocks for clients who paid up to $1,000 for an outfit, a fortune in those years. As her daughter would dryly observe decades later, “We were not poor during the Depression.”

The family, which by 1919 included a baby named Irving, lived for a time in a Harlem brownstone, with a backyard, that also housed Dr. Wolfson’s office. In 1927, along with Mary, their live-in German maid, they moved to an eight-room apartment on Madison Avenue and 97th Street, a comfortable neighborhood for a solidly middle-class Jewish family.

Florence attended Wadleigh High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, which still stands on West 114th Street. It was a perfect place for someone with a passion for playing piano, painting portraits and writing poems. A precocious student, she graduated at 15, and then she was off to Hunter College on East 68th Street.

Hers was a life of privilege: meeting friends for tea at Schrafft’s, nightclubbing at El Morocco and the Copacabana, dancing at the Pennsylvania Hotel and the New Yorker. She subscribed to the Philharmonic ($7 for the season) and bought discounted theater tickets at LeBlang’s drugstore, played tennis in Central Park and rode horses along the park’s bridle paths in jodhpurs or breeches — which she also wore to school because she thought she looked so dashing.

In the summer, there were excursions to the Catskills. “To the country today,”“ she wrote in her diary on Aug. 12, 1933, “and felt as never before my passion for the trees & clean air and infinite space.”

It was during one such trip that Florence met a dark-haired young man with chiseled features named Nathan Howitt, with whom she would elope a decade later. She was 13, he was 18, and the two crossed paths at Spring Lake, the Catskills hotel owned by his parents.

“Nat finally kissed me!” she wrote in her diary three years later. “It was pretty bad, but he was so utterly delightful about it that I didn’t care. He’s sweet.” He also proved a devoted swain: Among the items in a pile of rubble near the entrance of 98 Riverside, not far from the Dumpster that held the diary, was a brittle Western Union telegram addressed to her and signed: “I love you. Nat.”

In her senior year at Hunter, Florence served as editor in chief of Echo, the college’s literary journal, writing stories and plays with titles like “Heard Flowers” or “Three Thousand Dollars,” about a man who finds a wallet in Central Park and to his wife’s fury returns it to its owner.

She was hardly the only member of the class of ’34 with a taste for the literary life. One of her colleagues at Echo, Joy Davidman, who went on to marry the novelist C. S. Lewis, was a prize-winning poet. Another classmate, Bel Kaufman, granddaughter of the Yiddish humorist Sholom Aleichem, gained fame as the author of a best-selling novel, “Up the Down Staircase.”

Judging by the words beneath her portrait in The Wistarian, her college yearbook, Florence Wolfson, too, seemed headed for a career in the arts: “Undecided as to whether she should devote her life to painting or to writing, Florence will doubtless continue successfully to use both as media of expression.”

Despite a hectic social calendar, a comfortable lifestyle and a string of academic triumphs, however, the Hunter student felt isolated at home. Her parents fought bitterly with each other, and she clashed with both of them. “Had a miserable argument with mother this evening,” she wrote on Jan. 7, 1932. “I hate home. Whenever I voice the lightest complaint, the heavens over my head are crushed.”

On another occasion: “I never fully realized what a tragedy my parents’ lives were.”

Three-quarters of a century later, she would recall telephoning her parents anxiously before bringing home a date, to ask them to please not be fighting when she walked through the door. Her father, she said, was generous to his patients, especially during the Depression, when he sometimes treated those who couldn’t pay for just a few dollars, but, she added, “I never remember mother or father kissing me.”

IN its nearly 2,000 entries, the diary paints a picture of a teenager obsessed both with her appearance and with the meaning of existence.

Jan. 16, 1930: “I bought a pair of patent leather opera pumps with real high heels!” On April 8 that year: “Bought myself a little straw hat $3.45 — It won’t last long.” On April 20 the following year: “Dyed my eyebrows & eyelashes and I’ve absolutely ruined my face.” On March 13, 1934: “A fashion show for amusement and almost overcome with envy — not for the clothes, but the tall, slim loveliness of the models.”

Yet interspersed with observations about frivolous matters are equally heartfelt remarks about the books she loved — Baudelaire and Jane Austen were particular favorites — the paintings she studied, the performances she attended and the city that was her home.

“Slept long hours, read ‘The Divine Comedy’ and for the most part too exhausted to think or even understand,” she wrote on March 12, 1934. Four months later: “Reading ‘Hedda Gabler’ for the tenth time.”

Music, a recurring theme, scored her life with exclamation points. Beethoven symphonies! Bach fugues! “Have stuffed myself with Mozart and Beethoven,”“ she wrote on June 28, 1932. “I feel like a ripe apricot — I’m dizzy with the exotic.”

The portrait that emerges is of a young woman with huge ambitions, even if chasing them proved daunting. “Went to the Museum of Modern Art.”“ she wrote on Feb. 21, 1931. “Sheer jealousy — I can’t even paint an apple yet — it’s heartbreaking!” On Jan. 16, 1932: “I couldn’t study today & went to the museum to pass a morning of agonizing beauty — Blown glass, jade and exquisite embroideries.”“

On April 10, 1932: “Wrote all day — and my story is still incomplete.” On Sept. 2, 1934: “Planning a play on Wordsworth — possibilities are infinite.” On Oct. 12, 1934: “How I love to inflict pain on my characters!”

Yet what she seemed to crave most were grand passions that would envelop her and transform her life. “Five hours of tennis and glorious happiness,”“ she wrote on July 3, 1932. “All I want — is someone to love — I feel incomplete.”

Though written at a time when sex was a subject discussed discreetly at best, the diary is studded with brief but graphic details about relationships with both men and women. “Slept with Pearl tonight — it was beautiful,” she wrote on April 11, 1932. “There is nothing so gratifying as physical intimacy with one you like.” And on April 19, 1933: “Dear God, I’m sick of this! What am I — man or woman? Both? Is it possible — it’s all become so hard, so loathsome — the forced decision — the pain.”

A consuming object of her affection was Eva Le Gallienne, the openly lesbian actress who founded the Civic Repertory Theater in Greenwich Village. “I had a tremendous crush and drew a picture of her,” Florence Howitt recalled years later. “I went to the theater one night. I gave it to an usher and said, ‘Give this to Miss Le Gallienne.’ I went backstage and her girlfriend was there, half dressed. We talked. But she had this girlfriend. I came home and told my father. Of course he blew up.”

Perhaps the most revealing indicator of the roller coaster that was Florence’s emotional life is the diary’s “Index of Important Events,” charted over the volume’s five-year span:

“My first dance, Dec. 30, 1929.”

“My first cigarette, Jan. 12, 1930.”

“My first evening dress, May 20, 1930.”

“Spotted Eva Le Gallienne, May 8, 1930.”

“Fell in love with her, May 8, 1930.”

“Manny came to New York, July 19, 1930.”

“Won a scholarship, Aug. 30, 1930.”

“Spoke to Eva again — and was refused — Nov. 14, 1930.”

“First formal dance, January 10, 1931.”

“George came back, June 29, 1931.”

“Absolute End of George, July 1931.”

“End of Manny, April 23, 1932.”

“Slept with Pearl, April 11, 1932.”

“Won $40 for short story, June 8, 1932.”

“Reconciliation with Manny, Aug. 26, 1932.”

“Dismissed Pearl, Sept. 7, 1932.”

AFTER graduating from Hunter and taking a whirlwind trip abroad, Florence enrolled in the graduate English program at Columbia University, where she studied with the poet and critic Mark Van Doren and attended parties with the equally illustrious Lionel Trilling. A dusty document titled “The Life and Work of John Hughes,” her master’s thesis on a critic of the English poet Edmund Spenser, would be salvaged decades later, near where her diary was found.

Among those much taken with the brainy and beautiful graduate student was the poet Delmore Schwartz. James Atlas, in his biography of the poet, wrote of “the ‘salon’ of Florence Wolfson, the daughter of a wealthy doctor who allowed her to entertain friends in their large apartment.” Florence remembered the scene vividly; as she bent to light the fireplace, she used to unpin her long blond hair and let it cascade seductively onto her shoulders as her guests pondered the ethics of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.

In 1939, at 24, Florence married Dr. Howitt, who was just out of dental school at the University of Pennsylvania. After a honeymoon in Mexico, they moved into an apartment connected to the apartment her parents had moved to a few years earlier, on West End Avenue and 92nd Street. For the new bride there followed a stint of writing feminist-tinged advice articles for Good Housekeeping magazine, like “How to Quarrel With Your Husband,” “How to Behave in Public Without an Escort” and “Don’t Apologize So Much!”

But professional motivation did not seem her strong suit, and not long after the birth of her two daughters, Valerie and Karen, and the family’s move to 98 Riverside Drive, her focus shifted from pursuing a career in writing to playing tennis, bridge and the stock market.

TODAY, Florence Howitt is an unexpectedly glamorous-looking 90-year-old, with homes in Westport, Conn., and Pompano Beach, Fla. In Westport, she and her husband, a retired oral surgeon, live on Long Island Sound, in a private community near the Cedar Point Yacht Club, in a gray cottage over a one-lane wooden bridge. The walls of their living room are filled with figurative and abstract paintings, among them her pastel of their daughter Valerie as a young girl.

A few weeks ago, wearing well-tailored fawn pants, red lipstick, and tinted gold and tortoise Christian Dior glasses, Ms. Howitt sat in that room and journeyed back to the girl she had been. Clutching the diary with hands still supple enough to practice scales daily on the piano, she caressed the book’s fragile cover and gently thumbed through pages dense with girlish handwriting.

“ ‘I’m 14 years old!’ 1929!” she read in a husky voice. Then: “ ‘At last I’ve arrived! The year has left me wiser, less happy, but still I’m 15!’ ”

She seemed both shocked and delighted by the accounts of her early promiscuity.

“I’m quite a busy young lady,” she said, going on to read an entry written when was 15: “Had a visit from George again, and a lecture from Dad, again, who walked in at the wrong moment.”

Suddenly, she was back in the present. “I started this when I was 14,” she said, as if she were speaking to herself. “My husband’s 95 years old.”

Her reunion with her diary seemed to help her discover a lost self, one that burned with artistic fervor. “You’ve brought back my life,” she announced at one point.

Yet as she fingered the pages of the leather-bound book crumbling in her hands, she reflected on the disappearance of the creative young woman brought to life so vividly in its pages: “Wouldn’t you think I would have had a literary career?”

How, she was asked, did the diary end up in the Dumpster? She is not sure, but she suspects that the book was inadvertently abandoned in storage when she and her husband left 98 Riverside Drive in 1989.

The move from New York City to an affluent Connecticut suburb seemed to write a final entry to the chronicle of the eager, searching girl she had been. “Where did all of that creativity go?” she wondered aloud as she pondered the newly rediscovered story of her youth. “If I was true to myself, would I have ended up in Westport?”

Tony Hendra: Who he is and why I interviewed him

Recently I posted my review about The Messiah of Morris Avenue, a great debut novel by Tony Hendra. Through the power of social networking and email, I recently had the opportunity to interview this author and greatly enjoyed doing so because I not only found the book interesting and engaging but he coincidentally is the creator of one of the funniest bits of television I have ever seen. Ka is a wheel. While my questions were relatively short, I found Mr. Hendra's answers to be much more insightful, interesting and frankly lengthy than I ever could have hoped to receive. I guess that it is like how the essays written for an in-person exam are much shorter than those provided when given a take-home test.

In trying to keep things to a nice round number, I asked Tony a total of 10 questions. 8 questions were about the book and his career and the last 2 were about some recent controversies to which he has been linked. Here is the exchange:

JL: First off: Do you believe in God? If so, how would you describe this higher power?

TH: I do believe in god but less as a person or presence than as than the inescapable conclusion to a couple of very fundamental questions: Why not just nothing? Or Wittgenstein’s ‘the question is: why does the universe exist at all?’ This is not to detract in any way from science, in particular astrophysics, quantum physics, relativity theory, string theory etc. I believe the science-religion face-off to be a totally phony one. On the other hand I think these disciplines don’t answer - and often dismiss - such fundamental questions as irrelevant or superstitious or semantic, when they’re not. They’re a profound part of human inquiry: questions that have always existed and always will. That said, the imminence of this force, reality or dimension, its presence in our lives once accepted is also inescapable – in the minute grungy details of everyday life as well as the vastness of the universe(s). As Jay says ‘we’re (meaning god) the architect of all existence but we’re also its super’ I find that idea exciting even comforting. If there is a god he she or it, is just as present in the pixels of this screen I’m writing on as in that nebulae a trillion light years away across the immeasurable reaches of space.

JL: I believe that Christianity took about 400 years to truly catch on from the time Jesus lived (Constantine the Great legalized the religion in the 400’s). How long would it take for a new religion to make its way into the mainstream these days?

TH: Historically I’m not sure about that. Christianity certainly took 300 years to sort itself out and find its way through the thickets of what it called heresy but were actually competing versions of Christianity or vestiges of other older belief-systems that had attached themselves to it. The Council of Nicaea in 325 called by Constantine might be considered some kind of watershed I suppose. As to the far more fascinating prospect of how long it would take now – well I sort of address that in my epilogue. If the Messiah is successful enough I would love to write a second volume taking as my starting point the epilogue: the development of a new Christianity in the mid-21st century and tracking it through say its first century. Could be fantastic.

There was a fabulous book in the mid-50s called Canticle for Lebowitz, which did much the same thing. After the nuclear holocaust which wiped out most of the world, a new organized religion begins, akin in many ways to the Christianity of the early Church but weirdly skewed; the author creates a grim and magical version of the Dark Ages but set in the future – and what’s more in the US not Europe. It’s a great model. I’d love to have shot at that.

JL: How realistic of a portrait does the book paint about what is going on in America and the rest of the world these days?

TH: Very close – I think this is fiction that might almost be considered non-fiction. The way the book came about was: in November 2004 as I watched these Republicans preening themselves over a victory they attributed to their ‘Christian’ values, I couldn’t help thinking how far it was from the Christianity I grew up with and was nurtured in by Father Joe. And the best way I could think of to do that was to have the real Christ showing up and revealing these people for the unholy thugs they were/are.

I had toyed with this idea – Christ returning or versions of Christ - before but always satirically. To make this premise stick I had to write it for real – create a credible Christ figure who however entertaining had to be convincing in contrast to the fundamentalists’ caricature of Christianity . It was quite a challenge but in another way a fascinating journey: because I was forced to consider at some depth what in fact I did believe or would like to.

Mark Twain I believe it was, said if Christ came back the Christians would crucify him. And in the Grand Inquisitor passage of The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor threatens to execute the returned Jesus. So the returned Christ is hardly new as an idea. Making it convincing in slightly future New York (Morris Avenue is in the Bronx one of the five boroughs – and the poorest - of New York City) was what made the book so intriguing to write. One of my favourite parallels to the Gospels is when Jay walks on the water – except it’s the filthy polluted East River. There are many darker parallels in the ‘Passion’ chapters in which the Messiah is tried, ‘scourged’ (tortured) and crucified (executed by lethal injection). I remember very clearly the day I first Googled an image of the lethal injection gurney and realized that when condemned prisoners are strapped to it, their arms and legs are in precise cruciform shape. As a writer it was an exhilarating discovery; as a human who loathes the whole notion of the death penalty it was chilling – not I suspect a parallel that had ever occurred to anyone, except maybe some sadistic fundo Baptist. So there are many realistic parallels to what’s going on in the US under the Bush gang.

As to the future I believe that at no point in the close to half a century I’ve lived in the States has the very nature of the US been so under threat. And I mean from within. Although I saw my book as set in a palpable future – 1984 was my working model - many interviewers and reviewers have barely noticed that – preferring to see my ‘parallel America’ as essentially modern, set now. And certainly I’m pessimistic that the theocratic pressures of the Christian right on the US are going to go away. On the contrary we’re going a lot further down that road, before true resistance sets in. One of the main reasons is that the liberal-center-left opposition – and I don’t mean only the Democrats - believes that the Christian right’s success is some kind of temporary aberration in the system, which will soon correct itself, without them having to put much effort into the process. Suicidal if you ask me.

JL: How would you describe the unique perspective that the English “bring to the table” when analyzing and writing about America and Americans?

TH: Well, as I said I’ve lived in NY for a long, long time - 42 years to be exact, far longer than I ever lived in England. I actually tend to be impatient with Brits who come here and start holding forth about the nature of America and Americans, after a whole month spent in NY and LA – however entertaining they may think they’re being. I learnt early on in my American life that you can’t really make people laugh (I was a comedian at the time) unless you’re inside the culture to a degree that you’re saying things from a shared subconscious, a shared set of assumptions and references no-one has to state consciously. In fact it was more of a problem when I went back to England in 1983 to write and produce Spitting Image and realized that in the twenty years I’d been away I’d lost touch with that shared subconscious in England.

That said I do think the tradition of satire I was born into is an immensely useful and solid grounding in both form and attitude. Brits do tend to be more sure of themselves – you might say more fearless – than Americans when attacking institutions and the humans responsible for them. And they understand more instinctively the fundamental irony of satire – that you are saying the opposite of what you actually believe, exaggerating it in fact, to get at how absurd or disgusting (or both) it is. I’m afraid a lot of Americans – at least younger Americans – have been inculcated with deadly literalism which makes them believe that when you’re saying the exact opposite of what you believe, you really mean it. Sigh.

JL: Throughout your career, why has your humor specifically focused on satire?

TH: Once again I’m not sure how true that is anymore. Most of my life I’ve been a satirist/humorist but I began to find that very unsatisfying about ten years ago. I’m proud to have been part of the creation of the Lampoon and Spinal Tap and Spitting Image, but as you get older, you realize that just getting laughs feels like you’re only firing on a couple of cylinders. The process of creating humor often means suspending your belief in the totality of life and reality, refusing to acknowledge the dark as well as the light. That doesn’t have to be the case – great satirists like Waugh Swift, Voltaire, Nathaniel West come to mind. And what-if is one of those forms of satirical suspension (I mentioned 1984 earlier, one of the most famous examples of what-if; another is Doctor Strangelove one of the greatest satires ever written).

I stuck to satire for so long though – what I believe to be true satire as opposed to political or topical humor (see 4) - because when it does work it’s sublimely satisfying, and once or twice in my life it really has. National Lampoon’s Lemmings comes to mind or The President’s Brain Is Missing aka Ron and Nancy on Spitting Image.

JL: How does this book fit in with other the bits of satire you’ve done on American society, specifically the “Spitting Image” series? (As an aside, my sister, father and I know most of the words of the entire "Spitting Image" White House themed episode, including the entire “Ronnie and Nancy” theme song. We believe that to be one of the best bits of satire ever produced and love it with a special love.)

TH: Following on from 5 really: this book is a satire in that what-if style – I have recently written pieces in the American Prospect and HuffPost that do this kind of satire also, taking on the voice and attitudes of my antagonists to do them in. But this premise is more complicated – at a certain point when the flesh-and-blood messiah shows up, the narrative has to becomes much less ironic in tone. That’s why I chose to have a narrator who would make that very tricky transition smoothly – he is a skeptic both towards the theocracy the Christian right has wrought and towards the teachings and spirituality of the messiah. That’s a good thing because as one reviewer pointed out (Jesse Kornbluth for bookreporter.com) satires can be a lot of fun for the first hundred pages but become very tiresome as they works they way out to a conclusion; whereas I shift gears into a much more passionate fiction at – according to Mr Kornbluth I hasten to add – just the right moment.

JL: Speaking of “Spitting Image”: Why where only four Spitting Image episodes produced in America? What happened? Did its humor not translate well to the American audience?

TH: A painful question in some ways. I was a co-creator of SI (with the puppeteers Luck and Flaw) and part of our plan was that in due course - once it was up and running in the UK - I would bring it to the US and put down SI roots there too. Of the SI team only I had the feel for American audiences (as described above in 3.) that would have made a show this extreme palatable to Americans. You would have to get it absolutely right to get away with it. On the other hand the declining Reagan years – not to mention the years of the unspeakable moron Bush 1 – would have been fertile soil. In the event TV politics intervened and I left the show long before I intended. The writers who wrote the HBO specials that were done here (as I recall there were only two), holed up in a hotel in NY for a fortnight with a pile of newsmagazines and tried to write material from that. Needless to say they didn’t have a clue what Americans thought funny or were willing to laugh at, and the specials bombed. Self-destructive these Brits. Had the original plan been kept to, we’d all be a lot richer than we are.

JL: Regarding your memoir Father Joe, Father Joe was obviously a very powerful influence on you. If that is so, then why did it take you more than forty years and two marriages to “straighten up and fly right”?

TH: An enormous question and one which I had to write a 250-page book to answer. Briefly put the world is a very attractive place and I lost my faith; perhaps we all do in a way even those who start with no formal faith. But few people are lucky enough to have so forgiving, and gentle and therefore immensely strong a person in their lives waiting for them when they’re ready to return. In biblical terms my Father Joe story was a modern version of the Prodigal Son; and I think it appealed to so many people because many men and women – even those without faith – feel themselves to be somehow prodigal children and long to return home and see a Father Joe waiting for them at the door. I owe whatever good I found in life - and myself - to him.

My last 2 questions were ones that Mr. Hendra declined to answer. I would be remiss however if I did not post them along with Mr. Hendra's reasons for not answering them so here they are:

JL: First, in doing research about you, I was surprised to connect the dots and see that you are the same person that is involved with the controversy caused by the publication of your daughter’s memoir “How to Cook your Daughter." How do you address its charges of sexual abuse, mental cruelty, explosive rages and exposure to danger that she suffered at your hands?

Second, why would Michael McKean accuse you of taking too much credit on “This is Spinal Tap?” especially as he made these accusations over 20 years after the movie came out?

TH: I don't see the relevance of [questions] 9 and 10 to the current project (the messiah) which is a novel and whose content and thrust has nothing to do with my personal life. other than to reiterate that my daughter's charges of sexual abuse are and always have been, utterly false, i cannot discuss any issues relating to her, as i have undertaken legal actions in the matter. Question 10 i will be happy to address - there are unaired issues here interest to spinal tap fans - but not in this context.

Book Review Time: The Messiah of Morris Avenue

Recently I read Tony Hendra's debut novel The Messiah of Morris Avenueand found it to be a quite interesting read that I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in religion and/or politics. The ideas presented, especially the idea that our world is not tolerant to the message of peace, really resonated with me. Religion in all aspects has forever fascinated me: the good that it brings, the mysticism, the hypocracy, the evil that is done in the "name of God;" all of these aspects utterly amaze me, particularly how religion often provides a way and an excuse for the wicked to act even more wickedly.

While I am not a deeply religious person, I believe and acts as if "Ka is a wheel" and that we are all human beings deserving of love and respect, regardless of race, creed or color, as long as we in turn show love and respect towards all. Things do come full circle and its best to act with kindness for you never know when you'll need kindness in return. I enjoy when anyone challenges traditional religious dogmatic thought, whether it be Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series or Arthur C. Clarke's The Light Of Other Days. The same way that The Master and Margarita plays with the idea of "What if the Devil came to Moscow but no one believed he was the Devil because they were all atheists," this book plays with the idea of "What if Christ returned today yet no one believed that he was in fact Jesus?" I commend Hendra for putting down on paper such powerful ideas in such an entertaining manner. Hopefully this is just the start of good things for Hendra as he embarks on the novel writing part of his vast career.

Not only did I read the book, I spoke with the author which I find is always quite a treat. Coming later this week I will publish my expansive interview with Tony Hendra, the author of The Messiah of Morris Avenue. This is now the second WGTCTIP2 book review and author interview and I'm looking foward to doing this more often in the future.

Best Books of 2005

For your reading and gift-giving pleasure, I have grabbed the NY Times' 100 Notable Books of the Year list for 2005 and posted it to this site. Keep in mind this isn't the be all end all of lists. For instance, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is not on the list and I've heard from a ton of people that it was a great book. That being said, here is the list:

Fiction & Poetry

BEYOND BLACK. By Hilary Mantel. (John Macrae/Holt, $26.) Neurotic, demanding ghosts haunt a British clairvoyant in this darkly comic novel.

A CHANGED MAN. By Francine Prose. (HarperCollins, $24.95.) A neo-Nazi engages a Jewish human rights leader in this morally concerned novel, asking for help in his effort to repent.

COLLECTED POEMS, 1943-2004. By Richard Wilbur. (Harcourt, $35.) This urbane poetry survived the age of Ginsberg, Lowell and Plath.

EMPIRE RISING. By Thomas Kelly. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) A muscular historical novel in which the Irish erect the Empire State Building in a cheerfully corrupt New York.

ENVY. By Kathryn Harrison. (Random House, $24.95.) A psychoanalyst is unhappy but distant until Greek-tragedy things start happening in this novel by an ace student of sexual violation.

EUROPE CENTRAL. By William T. Vollmann. (Viking, $39.95.) A novel, mostly in stories, of Middle European fanaticism and resistance to it in the World War II period.

FOLLIES: New Stories. By Ann Beattie. (Scribner, $25.) This keen observer of the surface of life now slows down for an occasional epiphany.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. By J. K. Rowling. Illustrated by Mary GrandPr�. (Arthur A. Levine/ Scholastic, $29.99.) In this sixth volume of the epic series, the Dark Lord, Voldemort, is wreaking havoc throughout England and Harry, now 16, is more isolated than ever.

HOME LAND. By Sam Lipsyte. (Picador, paper, $13.) Lipsyte's antihero, a loser but unbowed, asserts in endless letters to his alumni magazine that all the others are losers too.

THE HOT KID. By Elmore Leonard. (Morrow, $25.95.) Many seek fame in this rendering of America's criminal landscape in the 1930's; the title character, a killer lawman, achieves it.

HOW WE ARE HUNGRY: Stories. By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney's, $22.) A shining miscellany peopled by characters in close touch with childhood.

IN CASE WE'RE SEPARATED: Connected Stories. By Alice Mattison. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $23.95.) The stories concern a family whose members couldn't lose each other if they tried.

INDECISION. By Benjamin Kunkel. (Random House, $21.95.) This postmodern, posteverything, fresh and funny novel by a young writer seems to develop a nonironic social conscience.

KAFKA ON THE SHORE. By Haruki Murakami. (Knopf, $25.95.) Two characters alternate in this dreamish novel: a boy fleeing an Oedipal prophecy and a witless old man who can talk to cats.

LUNAR PARK. By Bret Easton Ellis. (Knopf, $25.) A novel starring a brat named Bret Easton Ellis, who knows everybody and has more fun than ever happens to real people.

MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS. By Nadeem Aslam. (Knopf, $25.) Unhappy Pakistani exiles in a cold, hard Britain populate this intricate novel.

THE MARCH. By E. L. Doctorow. (Random House, $25.95.) Characters in this absorbing novel are transformed by distress and destruction as Sherman marches to the sea in 1864.

MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES. By Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez. (Knopf, $20.) A strange and luminous novel whose elderly hero pays for sex but finds love.

MIGRATION: New and Selected Poems. By W. S. Merwin. (Copper Canyon, $40.) Half a century's work, from archaic allegories to unpointed lyrics to secular prophecy and wisdom verses.

MISSING MOM. By Joyce Carol Oates. (Ecco/ HarperCollins, $25.95.) This novel peers into the void left by a woman's sudden absence.

MISSION TO AMERICA. By Walter Kirn. (Doubleday, $23.95.) In his new novel, Kirn invents a religion whose believers hit the road to recruit.

MOTHER'S MILK. By Edward St. Aubyn. (Open City, $23.) In this novel an ancient family's sins are visited on its offspring, who repeat them.

NATURAL HISTORY: Poems. By Dan Chiasson. (Knopf, $23.) This second collection conjures a postmodern landscape where folk knowledge and superstitions arrange into oddly moving litanies.

NEVER LET ME GO. By Kazuo Ishiguro. (Knopf, $24.) This bold novel imagines a school where clones are trained for a terrible destiny.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. By Cormac McCarthy. (Knopf, $24.95.) Women grieve, men fight in this hard-boiled Texas noir crime novel.

ON BEAUTY. Zadie Smith. (Penguin Press, $25.95.) The author of ''White Teeth'' pounces on a place like Harvard in a cultural-politics comedy.

OVERLORD: Poems. By Jorie Graham. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $22.95.) Politics and World War II, mediated by a major poet.

THE PAINTED DRUM. By Louise Erdrich. (HarperCollins, $25.95.) A ceremonial drum is magically linked to children and death in Erdrich's latest novel set among the Ojibwa.

PLEASE DON'T COME BACK FROM THE MOON. By Dean Bakopoulos. (Harcourt, $23.) When the fathers in the Rust Belt town of this novel abandon it en masse, their sons take over.

PREP. By Curtis Sittenfeld. (Random House, $21.95.) A scholarship girl at a nifty prep school is thrust into a world of privilege in this novel.

SATURDAY. By Ian McEwan. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.) This novel traces a day off in the life of an English neurosurgeon who comes face to face with senseless violence.

THE SEA. By John Banville. (Knopf, $23.) Banville's new novel, which won this year's Man Booker Prize, concerns an aging art critic mourning his wife's recent death - and his blighted life.

SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY. By Elliot Perlman. (Riverhead, $27.95.) An Australian novel so large in its concept of fiction's grasp on the world it takes seven narrators just to tell it.

SHALIMAR THE CLOWN. By Salman Rushdie. (Random House, $25.95.) Beauty loses out as Kashmir and Rushdie's characters who live there turn brutal.

SLOW MAN. By J. M. Coetzee. (Viking, $24.95.) Crippled at 60 in a car-bike accident, instructed willy-nilly by a know-it-all female novelist, Coetzee's hero studies the diminished life.

STAR DUST. Frank Bidart. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $20.) The fastidious and the primal join in poems concerned with man as maker.

THE SUCCESSOR. By Ismail Kadare. (Arcade, $24.) A whodunit tragicomedy by Albania's pre-eminent novelist, about a loyal Communist who dies before succeeding to power in that unlucky land.

TOWELHEAD. By Alicia Erian. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) A bluntly erotic novel whose narrator's budding sexuality gets her driven from home.

VERONICA. By Mary Gaitskill. (Pantheon, $23.) A novel that ruminates on beauty and cruelty, told by a former Paris model now sick and poor.

Nonfiction

THE ACCIDENTAL MASTERPIECE: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa. By Michael Kimmelman. (Penguin Press, $24.95.) A study of the unpredictable, by the chief art critic of The Times.

AHMAD'S WAR, AHMAD'S PEACE: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq. By Michael Goldfarb. (Carroll & Graf, $25.95.) A memoir of a good man murdered for his decency.

AMERICAN PROMETHEUS: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. (Knopf, $35.) The first full biography of the atom bomb's father -- rich in new revelations.

ARE MEN NECESSARY? When Sexes Collide. By Maureen Dowd. (Putnam, $25.95.) The Times's twice-a-week Op-Ed columnist for the last decade expands her observations on the gender situation, from the Y chromosome up.

ARMAGEDDON: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945. By Max Hastings. (Knopf, $30.) Though obviously beaten, the Germans wouldn't give up; an experienced journalist pursues the apparent paradox.

THE ASSASSINS' GATE: America in Iraq. By George Packer. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) The New Yorker reporter reviews the pride and ignorance he blames for the war.

THE BEATLES: The Biography. By Bob Spitz. (Little, Brown, $29.95.) Spitz's broad, incisive chronicle breathes new life into the familiar story of the Liverpool boys who conquered the entertainment world.

BECOMING JUSTICE BLACKMUN: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey. By Linda Greenhouse. (Times Books/Holt, $25.) A Times correspondent tells how a Minnesota lawyer became the author of the Roe v. Wade decision.

BEYOND GLORY: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink. By David Margolick. (Knopf, $26.95.) A heavyweight chronicle of good's symbolic clash with evil in the ring.

BOSS TWEED: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York. By Kenneth D. Ackerman. (Carroll & Graf, $27.) The colorful master of graft, our greatest.

BREAK, BLOW, BURN. By Camille Paglia. (Pantheon, $20.) Smart, lively essays on 43 poems, written without ego for a popular audience.

BURY THE CHAINS: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves. By Adam Hochschild. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.95.) How the struggle availed, especially when black Haitian armies beat white French and British ones.

COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. By Jared Diamond. (Viking, $29.95.) In ''Guns, Germs, and Steel'' (1997), Diamond speculated on how the world reached its present pecking order of nations; his latest book examines geographic and environmental reasons some societies have fallen apart.

CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS: A True Story. By Kurt Eichenwald. (Broadway, $26.) A meticulous dissection of the rise and fall of Enron by a correspondent for The New York Times.

DE KOONING: An American Master. By Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. (Knopf, $35.) An exploration at length of de Kooning's life and work and their role in art's midcentury upheaval.

DREAM BOOGIE: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. By Peter Guralnick. (Little, Brown, $27.95.) This exhaustive biography surrounds Cooke in the overlapping worlds of gospel, the civil rights movement and rock 'n' roll.

ELIA KAZAN: A Biography. By Richard Schickel. (HarperCollins. $29.95.) The stranger-than-fiction life story of the distinguished stage and screen director.

AN END TO SUFFERING: The Buddha in the World. By Pankaj Mishra. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) An intellectual autobiography: what Mishra has learned from the Buddha's legacy.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. By Charles C. Mann. (Knopf, $30.) This sweeping portrait of pre-Columbian civilization argues that it was far more populous and sophisticated than previously thought.

FREAKONOMICS: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. (Morrow, $25.95.) A maverick scholar and a journalist apply economic thinking to everything from sumo wrestlers who cheat to legalized abortion and the falling crime rate.

GARBAGE LAND: On the Secret Trail of Trash. By Elizabeth Royte. (Little, Brown, $24.95.) A chronicle of the weird stuff that happens to what we discard.

THE GLASS CASTLE: A Memoir. By Jeannette Walls. (Scribner, $25.) Walls and her three sibs, dragged all over the country by damaged parents, thought it a glorious adventure. Tough kids.

A GREAT IMPROVISATION: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. By Stacy Schiff. (Holt, $30.) A wise account of Benjamin Franklin's diplomatic brilliance, revealed in Paris at 70.

IN COMMAND OF HISTORY: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War. By David Reynolds. (Random House, $35.) How a very busy man and a staff of busy assistants managed to turn out six volumes in 1948-54.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU: Restless Genius. By Leo Damrosch. (Houghton Mifflin, $30.) A life of the self-taught Swiss who proclaimed the noble savage and denounced conventional social distinctions.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH: His Life, His Politics, His Economics. By Richard Parker. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $35.) The career of a public intellectual, ambassador and aphorist.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BRONX IS BURNING: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City. By Jonathan Mahler. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) A narrative that captures New York City's about-face from rot to rehab.

THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOWELL. Edited by Saskia Hamilton. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $40.) Confessions, opinions and other people's secrets animate these missives from a fine poet.

LINCOLN'S MELANCHOLY. By Joshua Wolf Shenk. (Houghton Mifflin, $25.) In an era before the relentless good cheer and glad-handing of modern politicians, Lincoln passed through shadows to triumph.

THE LOST PAINTING. By Jonathan Harr. (Random House, $24.95.) The adventures of Caravaggio's ''Taking of Christ,'' painted in 1602, rediscovered by scholar-hunters in 1990.

MADE IN DETROIT: A South of 8-Mile Memoir. By Paul Clemens. (Doubleday, $23.95.) Clemens (born in 1973) recalls growing up working-class white in a black city losing both people and jobs.

MAO: The Unknown Story. By Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. (Knopf, $35.) A huge, meticulously researched biography that paints Chairman Mao in authentic Hitler-Stalin 20th-century hues.

MARK TWAIN: A Life. By Ron Powers. (Free Press, $35.) A wise and lively biography of an American paradox, always lively, rarely wise.

MATISSE THE MASTER: A Life of Henri Matisse. The Conquest of Color, 1909-1954. By Hilary Spurling. (Knopf, $40.) The final volume of a huge, careful study of a 20th-century wizard.

MIRROR TO AMERICA: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.)A riveting and bitterly candid memoir by a seminal African-American scholar, raised and educated in an era of stifling race prejudice.

NEW ART CITY. By Jed Perl. (Knopf, $35.) The art critic of The New Republic explores heroic Abstract Expressionism and its cool, empirical successors in New York.

NIGHT DRAWS NEAR: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War. By Anthony Shadid. (Holt, $26.) An Arabic-speaking reporter on life in the Red Zone, outside American control.

OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL. By Sean Wilsey. (Penguin Press, $25.95.) A coming-of-age memoir by a writer so skillful his account of his sufferings as a rich kid never becomes insufferable.

OMAHA BLUES: A Memory Loop. By Joseph Lelyveld. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22.) A memoir of a complicated childhood by a former executive editor of The Times.

102 MINUTES: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. By Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. (Times Books/Holt, $26.) A skilled reconstruction by writers of The Times.

THE ORIENTALIST: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life. By Tom Reiss. (Random House, $25.95.) The bold writer and impostor Lev Nussimbaum (Kurban Said) (Essad Bey) and his lives from 1905 to 1942.

OUR INNER APE: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. By Frans de Waal. (Riverhead, $24.95.) De Waal addresses the similarities between humans and their closest relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees.

POSTWAR: A History of Europe Since 1945. By Tony Judt. (Penguin Press, $39.95.) An inquiry into why the condition of Europe is so much better than anyone would have dared hope in 1945.

THE PRINCE OF THE CITY: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life. By Fred Siegel with Harry Siegel. (Encounter, $26.95.) Giuliani seen as the Machiavellian prophet of an alternative urban policy and as an eligible president.

THE RISE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: Jefferson to Lincoln. By Sean Wilentz. (Norton, $35.) A clear, readable and monumental narrative work of scholarship, full of rich detail.

THE RIVER OF DOUBT: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. By Candice Millard. (Doubleday, $26.) A vibrant retelling of Roosevelt's postelection expedition through the Rio da D�vida; what was supposed to be a well-provisioned safari became instead a survey of an uncharted capillary of the Amazon.

1776. By David McCullough. (Simon & Schuster, $32.) A lively work that skewers Washington's pretensions and admires citizen soldiers.

SPOOK: Science Tackles the Afterlife. By Mary Roach. (Norton, $24.95.) A diligent, cheerful account of efforts to learn whether science can show that there is (or isn't) life after death.

THE SURVIVOR. By John F. Harris. (Random House, $29.95.) An assessment of Bill Clinton's performance in the White House; by a reporter for The Washington Post.

A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS. By Amos Oz. (Harcourt, $26.) A memoir by the Israeli novelist, mourning the death of his mother long ago and the demise of the socialist Zion in his own time.

TEAM OF RIVALS: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. By Doris Kearns Goodwin. (Simon & Schuster, $35.) An elegant, incisive study of Lincoln through his relationships with his former political rivals turned cabinet members.

THE TENDER BAR: A Memoir. By J. R. Moehringer. (Hyperion, $23.95.) As an only child abandoned by his father, the author found an adoptive family in a Long Island bar (now defunct).

THEATRE OF FISH: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador. By John Gimlette. (Knopf, $25.) Gimlette explores the provincial psyche by journeying through the barren regions whose chief resource, fish, has departed.

TULIA: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town. By Nate Blakeslee. (PublicAffairs, $26.95.) How 38 people, mostly black, were convicted of grave drug charges on virtually no evidence but the word of a single cop.

VINDICATION: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. By Lyndall Gordon. (HarperCollins, $29.95.) A biography of the brilliant early feminist.

A WAR LIKE NO OTHER: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. By Victor Davis Hanson. (Random House, $29.95.) The fate of Athens, the superpower of its day, after it tried to export its political system to the rest of the Greek world.

WARPED PASSAGES: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions. By Lisa Randall. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $27.95.) From a Harvard physicist, advanced cosmological theories for lay folk who are a bit baffled by the idea of 10 dimensions.

WITHOUT APOLOGY: Girls, Women, and the Desire to Fight. By Leah Hager Cohen. (Random House, $24.95.) Cohen thoughtfully tracks girls' boxing till she herself is converted to pugilism.

WODEHOUSE: A Life. By Robert McCrum. (Norton, $27.95.) The prolific, industrious creator of Jeeves and oh so many dear others.

THE WORLD IS FLAT: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. By Thomas L. Friedman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.50.) The New York Times columnist maps the next phase of globalization as technological forces level the world's economic playing field.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. By Joan Didion. (Knopf, $23.95.) A powerful, persuasive account of the crisis of mortality after the sudden death of the author's husband.

King and Marvel Join Forces To Launch Dark Tower Comic

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Stephen King breaks new ground at Marvel with original comic series based on his epic "The Dark Tower." Marvel Comics to launch first issue in April 2006. Premium hard cover collection of the first six issues to be released in Holiday 2006.

The following copy is a combination from Marvel.com's release:

New Comic Series Exploring the Origin of the Notorious Gunslinger Character Marks First Time Stephen King Has Produced Original Content for the Comic Book Format.

NEW YORK: World Fantasy Award-winning writer Stephen King, long acknowledged as the master of modern horror, and Marvel Comics join forces this spring to launch a ground-breaking new comic book series adapted from King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower.

The comic series will mark the first time Stephen King has produced original content for an ongoing comic book project. The series will expand the saga of King's epic hero, Roland Deschain, whose quest to save the Dark Tower is captured in seven best-selling novels published over the course of twenty-five years. King's unparalleled storytelling power will inform new stories that delve into the life and times of the young Roland, revealing the trials and conflicts that lead to the burden of destiny he must assume as a man, the last Gunslinger from a world that has moved on. The comics will work in conjunction with the novels, further supplementing and defining the saga's mythology under the direction of the acclaimed author himself.

"As a lifelong fan of Marvel comic books, and as an adult reader who's seen comics "come of age" and take their rightful place in the world of fantasy and science fiction, I'm excited to be a part of Roland's new incarnation," said Stephen King.

The series will be illustrated by Eisner-award winning artist Jae Lee.

King continued, "I love Jae Lee's work, and I think this is going to be a dynamite partnership. Frankly, I can't wait."

The first issue is scheduled to debut in April, 2006 with a hard cover collection of the first 6 issues released Holiday, 2006. Fans will start seeing promotional items, which feature more info in the series, beginning this December. Watch for more info as it becomes available at www.marvel.com/king.

Um, is it April 2006 yet?! I can't wait!

Liberality For All

A new comic titled "Liberality For All" is launching in October. Its premise is slightly more original than the usual "I was bitten by a radioactive spider" deal:

It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. America is under oppression by ultra-liberal extremists which have yielded governing authority to the United Nations. It is up to an underground conservative group (known as F.O.I.L.) led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City.

The big idea behind the series is what if today's anti-war liberals were in charge of the American government and had been since 9/11? What would be the results of fighting "a more sensitive war on terror" and looking to the corrupt United Nations to solve all of America 's problems? I can think of only two words - "Oy vey." My favorite part is how "Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North are each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed 'Oscar'." Gotta love that First Amendment thang.

Thanks go to Mr. Neu for making my day. I'm going to have to get this book and just laugh my liberal ass off...

Greek Tragedy In The Times

If you haven't gone to my friend and co-worker Stephanie Klein's blog (see the left nav as well) yet, you might be one of the few people left that hasn't. She has gotten so popular that the NY Times wrote a feature article about Stephanie, her blog and her life, that can be found on the cover of today's NY Times Sunday Styles section. I was happy to see that there was even a picture of Chris together with Stephanie that snuck into the paper somehow (its nice to know that he can get some press for something other an Altoids iPod battery charger). Nothing that she does surprises me anymore, though it always makes me smile. All I can say is "keep it up!" and that I can't wait for the book, actual both books, to be published.

Mythic Rome

I am currently making my way through Edith Hamilton's seminal collection of Greek, Roman and Norse myths titled simply Mythology. I started re-reading it last year on my honeymoon which coincided with the Athens Olympics (a perfect time to be reading Greek mythos) and am still at it after many stops and starts. In finishing the section on Virgil's Aeneid I came across this quote about "the Roman race" by Virgil (whose Wikipedia entry calls him "Vergil"):

"They were destined to bring under their empire the peoples of earth, to impose the rule of submissive nonresistance, to spare the humbled and to crush the proud."

Interesting to think about, especially as a citizen of the world's only "empire" today.

Quotes Meant To Inspire

I received an email at work yesterday stating that "the tragic events in London late last week require a disruption of the ordinary" which included the 3 quotes below. If you can, take 5 minutes to read and reflect on what those men are really saying:

This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.
� Elie Weisel

Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.
� HH The Dali Lama

God grant, that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, "This is my Country."
� Ben Franklin

Literary Map of NYC

Ever read a book that takes place in NY and later walk by the real world house/building that you read about? To me, the Met as it was featured in both From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and in Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is always in the background of my thoughts while I'm there. The same holds true for both Turtle Bay and the "vacant" lot on 46th and 2nd. Since they have such special status in the Dark Tower Universe, they have special status with me. This handy dandy literary map of NYC from the New York Times will show you places that matter to other people out there in our fair city. #38 is about the Dark Tower.

Thanks Phyll

In Memory of Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow passed away recently and it saddened me greatly. Although I have not read many of his books, his existance, along with Eli Weisel, acted as Jewish Titans. At one point in his novel Herzog, Mr. Bellow seems to set out a kind of manifesto, a ringing checklist of the challenges the novelist must confront, or the reality he must contain or describe:

"Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs..."

The only word I can think of is "powerful". Mankind has lost another great thinker.

Orson Scott Card To Write "Ultimate Iron Man"

One of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, is going to write the first few issues of Ultimate Iron Man, a new Marvel title that is launching early next month. How will the author who wrote the classic Ender's Game (which is actually recommended reading now in a number of high school English classes believe it or not), who has never written for this type of medium before, hold up? I'll let you know next week after it comes out.

Learning To Love The Creative Mind

"A writer should be in a cold room because the chill quickens the brain, should be hungry as an incentive to earn, and should dress only in underwear so as to place an obstacle in the way of chucking the job at hand in favor of heading for the neighborhood bar." - Bill Jayme

Bob Dylan Quotes from his memoir

"Folk songs are evasive." They offer "the truth about life, and life is more or less a lie, but then again that's exactly the way we ant it to be." Their lesson? "If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good. Folk songs taught me that."

"The sociologiest were saying that TV had deadly intentions and was destroying the minds and imaginations of the young - that their attention spans were being dragged down. Maybe that's true but the three minute song also did the same thing."

The Civil War was when "America was put on the cross, died and was resurrected...would be the all-encompassing template behind everything that I would write."

The King in NY!

This is why Erik Neu is part of my ka-tet - he bought me a ticket to this event while I was away on my honeymoon: Conversations with Charlie Rose: Stephen King. Boo-ya! In my old hood no less - I'm beyond psyched, I need to invent a word to describe how I feel...

Here is some background info provided by the 92nd St Y web site:

The most anticipated book in Stephen King's career, The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower is the final installment to the best-selling author's epic series. The end to a saga hailed as a "hypnotic blend of suspense and sentimentality - a sprawling, eventful tale of demons, monsters, narrow escapes, and magic portals" (The New York Times Book Review), The Dark Tower promises to be the most exciting publishing event of the year. Stephen King is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

If you'd like to buy tickets, they are unbelievably still available so click here and get some tix!

The Dark Tower V Commala poems

When Roland danced at the town meeting place in Calla Bryne Sturgis:

Come-come-commala
Rice come a-alla
I-sissa 'ay a-bralla
Dey come a-folla
Down come a-rivva
Or-i-za we kivva
Rice be a green-o
See all we seen-o
See-o the green-o
Come-come-commala!

Come-come-commala
Rice come a-falla
Deep inna walla
Grass come-commala
Under the sky-o
Grass green n high-o
Girl n her fella
Lie down togetha
They slippy 'ay slide-o
Under 'ay sky-o
Come-come-commala
Rice come a-falla!

When Andy was leading the town's children down the street before the great battle:

ANDY
Commala-come-one!
Mamma hada a son
Dass-a time 'at Daddy
Had d'mos' fun!

CHORUS
Commala-come-come!
Daddy had one
Dass-a time 'at Mommy
Had d'mos' fun!

Dark Tower Release Dates

From news@stephenking.com:

"Due to popular demand, the US publication schedule for release of Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower have been moved ahead. The on-sale date for Song of Susannah will now be June 8, 2004 and The Dark Tower will be available September 21, 2004."

I have only two words - Yeah baby!

Books versus Movies

My fiance sits on the couch finishing Return of the King as I sit typing at the computer. Having just come from Stephen King's web site, having just watched a number of DT inspired short films and having made plans to watch The Two Towers on DVD tonight, I feel the need to reaffirm why I love books tremendously more than movies. Mr. King himself said it better than I can, at least right now, so I will lift what he wrote from the FAQ section of his site in response (it was in response to the question "Are you going to make a Dark Tower Movie?"):

"I've always resisted that idea because movies have a way of freezing characters and places in the audience's mind whereas in books everybody has their own different idea of, for instance, how Roland or Susannah looks but if you do it as a movie, immediately that kind of gets frozen in place and you say 'Oh, Billy Bob Thornton is what Roland Deschain looks like.' Or you say 'Brad Pitt, that's what Eddie Dean looks like.' You know what I'm saying, or you can say 'Calla Bryn Sturgis from Wolves of the Calla looks like maybe the Universal back lot', and I've always resisted that."

'Nuff said for now...

New Stephenson Book!

Click here to read about Neal Stephenson's new book. Personally, I cannot wait to read it...

More Dark Tower News

One lucky fan will have the opportunity to hang with Mr. King himself, that is if he or she can win this contest.

Sounds like a great idea and I cannot wait to see what some of the movies look like upon completion. I just hope the quality of the work submitted is worthy to review.

Long Live The King

The Tower draws nearer! This past Sunday I read a new introduction to The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three while in a Costco of all places. Stephen King wrote in it about how he wanted to create a Tolkien-like saga in a Sergio Leone movie landscape (think Lord of the Rings set in �The Good, The Bad & the Ugly�) and I immediately and gleefully starting thinking, �Yes! I knew it! I knew it!� He wrote about what motivated him, way back when, to write this series and what is driving him now to finish it. Yes, finish it. Over the next year and a half, expect bold new things from Mr. King!

First things first � Books V, VI and VII of the Dark Tower series have been named and slated for delivery. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla will arrive in stores on November 5th, 2003. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, will arrive in store in the Summer of 2004 and The Dark Tower VII, The Dark Tower, will arrive in November, 2004. It also seems that Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger has been updated to make it more in-line with the other books. Supposedly there is now 10% more content than the previous edition. Speaking of previous editions, new introductions have been written for all the first four books.

Second, at Stephen King�s web site there is a section completely devoted to the Dark Tower. Click here to go check out either a short flash movie or enter the site itself. Overall, it�s a really well done flash site � definitely one deserving to be associated with The Dark Tower.

Third, I learned from George about this book entitled The Dark Tower: A Concordance, Volume 1. It is a comprehensive handbook for all things Mid-World (characters, high speech phrases, etc) from the first four books. Volume 2, published when Dark Tower V comes out this November, will cover the last three books. While my reading load is currently backed up by a couple of books, I will need to buy this ASAP. I think pretty soon I�m going to need a new bookcase�

Thoughts on NY

From the ruins, lonely & as inexplicable as the sphinx, rose the Empire State Building. And just as it had been a tradition of mine to climb to the plaza roof to take leave of the beautiful city, extending as far as the eyes could reach, so now I went to the roof of the last & most magnificent of towers. Then I understood. Everything was explained. I had discovered the crowning error of the city; it’s Pandora’s box. Full of vanity, pride, the New Yorker had climbed here and seen with dismay what he had never suspected. That the city was not the endless succession of canyons that he had supposed, but that it had limits, fading out into the country on all sides into an expanse of green and blue that alone was limitless. And with the awful realization that New York was a city after all and not a universe, the while shining edifice that he had reared in his imagination came crashing to the ground. That was the gift that Alfred Smith gave to the citizens of New York.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, excerpt from My Lost City