http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/16/orwells-nineteen-eig.html

Author Dani Shapiro, perhaps best known for the best-selling Slow Motion, her memoir of decadence and death, sits in as editor in the tenth entry in the Best New American Voices series: the 2010 edition.

How I am reading the best voices of 2010 while sitting a 2009 living room is beyond me. Perhaps the suggestion is that these time-traveling voices are the ones we ought to watch for in the new year. I was never much good at science.

At any rate, a leisurely 8-hour bus trek from Massachusetts to Philadelphia (including the obligatory breakdown at the side of the highway, but the extent of literature I could make out in the darkness were terse text messages) provided me with plenty of time to chisel my way through Shapiro’s selections, gleaned from writing programs and summer conferences such as Bread Loaf and Sewanee. So far the memorably named Boomer Pinches has underwhelmed, David James Poissant writes of broken father-son relationships with the same exterior grit and interior sentimentality of a Bruce Willis character, Claire O’Connor tackles cancer and great white sharks, and Christian Moody of the University of Cincinatti outdoes his peers with the truly original “Horusville,” a place where trees have eyes and record the lurid private lives of the town residents.

The Best New American Voices series first came on the scene in that dastardly year 2000 (remember stocking up on water and canned green beans? I know you do) and has since been edited by, in addition to the changing yearly guest editors, executive editor John Kulka and writer and critic Natalie Danford.

There are two types of Household Names. Strain A of Household Names are so pervasive that even a young Hellen Keller would have a hard time escaping them: Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Danielle “superfluous use of adjectives like ‘velvety’ or ‘dazzling”” Steele.

Then there is Strain B of Household Names, subtype Not-Really-Indie-Indies, the literary equivalent of films like I Heart Huckabees or Little Miss Sunshine. Hollywood? Not quite. But art house? I don’t think so. These writers are more often known by their works than their names — The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera), What is the What (Valentino Achak Deng), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers).

Then, we have those writers who are not exactly obscure, for no writer, published, in print, read by eyes not belonging to friends and family and exes who cock their heads and wonder, Is that character me? is ever really obscure. But they are not household names, not even in the homes of self-styled intellectuals who make lots of references to Camus or Colette.

Kate Braverman is one of these not-exactly-obscurities. Born in 1950 and based in L.A., I feel Braverman deserves a bit of applause for her ventures into experimental hybrids of prose and poetry. Her short story “Vanishing Acts,” featured in the Spring 2004 issue of the Mississippi Review, goes out on a limb — out on a tightrope — and dashes plot and character to the ground in favor of sheer atmosphere. How lazy, bitter aspiring writers may be tempted to think — but “Vanishing Acts” is anything but. Braverman successfully takes an abstract concept and manages to conjure up exactly what she means while never directly explaining herself.

“This is how to vanish,” her — story? poem? essay? — begins. “[Vanished women] wear boots because they prefer walking,” she writes. “It’s the only way to become intimate with a city. You must kiss each brick, each cobblestone with your feet.”

We are never allowed to know explicitly what a vanished woman is. But we feel it. The writing is heard with the bones, not the eyes.

Evenson won an O. Henry award for his story “Two Brothers” in 1998.  He has published numerious collections of short stories, including The Wavering Knife and Altmann’s Tongue. Interestingly enough, Evenson even wrote a media tie-in novel for the Aliens franchise under B. K. Evenson entitled Aliens: No Exit, 2008.

But for me, Twitter had to go.

I parted ways with my account some 3 days ago. The obituary should be appearing soon in newspapers around the globe, spinning in black and white toward the camera with melodramatic trombone tones announcing the end.

Why delete my Twitter account?

A waste of time, yes. Inherently stupid, sure. Flamboyantly meaningless, absolutely. But what really bothered me about my Twitter usage was that it was sucking blood from my writing. My writing.

Free to constantly rattle off any fragment, any snatch of a sentence that sounded good, what was at first liberating was quick to become tiresome. The phrases I found myself constantly splashing up were pointlessly cryptic, not intriguing. They were lazy, not profound. It’s not as though you can edit “tweets.”

I realize of course that Twitter doesn’t claim to be, or want to be, some powerhouse writer’s tool. It’s a fun, silly little outlet for all the run-over Facebook can’t contain. But I have to be a writer first — I can’t trade off instant gratification for dilution.

So, I say tweeting is for the birds.

The Paris Review‘s spring 2009 issue also features a bland interview with Annie Proulx who regrets writing Brokeback Mountain and claims that creative writing students should learn to “cut their teeth” on novels first because the short story and novella form is harder to control because of its limited length.

And why should they have? After all, she’s notoriously — okay, maybe that’s stretching a bit, but at the very least, she’s, shall we say, notably reticent about her personal life. Even in fits of spontaneous Googling, I’ll catch the leak on you, Carson!, the only readily available info out there seems to be that she lives in Canada and does a lot of translation, plus some poetry.

What kind of poetry? The pretentious kind, according to critic James Pollock.

Well, that’s quaint, because it also happens to be the kind of poetry that appeals to someone — that’s me, by the way — more likely to make fun of poetry than take it seriously.

I recently read her book The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos. I have to concede — not the most accessible title. But non-accessible doesn’t have to be synonymous with non-pretentious, and in Carson’s case, it isn’t. It’s intelligent; it’s challenging; it isn’t your chapbook of poetry clichés, you won’t find any rants about consumerism or bitter comparisons between losing one’s virginity and dying animals. It tracks the endless decline of a doomed marriage between two artists, even beyond their divorce.

One of my favorite bits, from “II. BUT A DEDICATION IS ONLY FELICITOUS IF PERFORMED BEFORE WITNESSES — IT IS AN ESSENTIALLY PUBLIC SURRENDER LIKE THAT OF STANDARDS OF BATTLE”:

“He seemed happy. You’re like Venice he said beautifully.
Early next day
I wrote a short talk (“On Defloration”) which he stole and had published
in a small quarterly magazine.
Overall this was a characteristic interaction between us.
Or should I say ideal.
Neither of us had ever seen Venice.”

The poem in its entirety can be read here.

(I swear, this isn’t the beginning of a bad joke. Bear with.)

So the other night, myself and a friend of mine are watching the remake of Halloween. I should hope, as a film major, that I know a little bit about film, and this friend certainly does. So we’re complaining, a bit pretentiously, about the movie we’ve voluntarily set out to watch: “Ugh, why would you remake such a classic?” “Ugh, Rob Zombie’s directing style is all wrong for the atmosphere.” “Ugh, why would you try to totally explain away all the mystery that makes Halloween creepy in the first place?”

Of course, the movie was terrible. Or at least nothing like the original us horror elitists tend to idolize.

But it got me thinking — why don’t people remake books?

“HAH! Because that’s a terrible idea, it’s completely different,” you automatically think, and how perceptive you are.

But why? What makes it such a different animal?

Films and novels have the same goal: to tell a story in the best way possible according to the demands of the material. That might call for being understated, over the top a la Michael Bay, abstract like William S. Burroughs, or something else entirely.

But if we can, and commonly do, “rewrite” someone’s images — and even, more literally, their dialogue — why not somebody’s words? It’s effectively the same process: taking the meat of a story and revamping the bells and whistles for the sake of modernizing it, fixing a flaw, or fleshing out some murky part of the plot.

Yet no one rewrites books. No one even takes the idea seriously. Does this mean that novels are more personal and unique than films? That a story on paper can only be told one way? That style and content are more closely intertwined than in perhaps any other medium?

Anyway, I’ll be thinking about all this when I do my “surfer dude” retelling of Ulysses.

Alright, I can’t lie. One, I like Starbucks. Contrary to popular belief the baristas are always super-friendly, and their Frappuccinos are freakin’ awesome. Two, I like writing, and unless the weather is particularly gruesome, where better to write than… well, a coffeeshop?

And while Starbucks — ever easy to find, being located conveniently in three or four locations per block — is a good standby, sometimes you just need a different (pardon the pun) flavor. And when the need for a location change in the old writing routine strikes, where in Philadelphia can you go?

Well, I’ve found a few decent spots, and I’m just nice enough to share them with you.

Intermezzo on the edge of Drexel’s campus is my prime alternative to Starbies. (Yeah, Starbies. Take it or leave it.) Generally, the servers are decent, you can get sandwiches and (pre-made and pre-wrapped) muffins or cookies to go with your beverage of choice, and they tend to stay open to midnight – minimum. The hours change daily, so call ahead, but if you’re pulling an all-nighter and need to escape your roommate’s endless Guitar Hero renditions of Freebird, bank on this place.

Hausbrandt might serve up a little more pretension than some can stomach, but the atmosphere is airy and pleasant, and the menu, while a tinge pricy, is quite broad.

The Saturn Club Hair Salon & Café — don’t be put off by the name, it’s simply two businesses sharing a building around Penn’s campus, near Bubble House — is a cute, comfy little joint. On the opposite end of the spectrum from delightful Euro-pretension, Saturn is better described as (hate to use the word) “funky” or earthy.

Walnut Bridge Coffee House will be our last sampling for today. The space is tiny, but artsy decor with no expenses spared and a luxurious offering of chocolates and truffles behind an inviting glass case makes it feel cozy rather than cramped. The sofa and fat chairs that provide much of the limited seating adds to the homey atmosphere as well. The only caveat with this place is, the hours are somewhat short, so if you’re looking for a late-night experience, skip it and head back to Intermezzo.

At any rate, hope anyone who likes to read or write or god forbid chat with friends will find something enjoyable in at least one of these Philly coffeeshops. Happy hunting!

Joyce’s story begins with a boy who is infatuated with his friend’s older sister. The girl lives across the street from the boy, and some days he watches her outside through his window. The story revolves around how the boy can catch the girl’s attention. His only interaction with her is when she calls her brother in from playing with Joyce’s main character. But Joyce’s narration specifically emphasizes the unrealistic possibility of a relationship between the pair.

In order to emphasize the boy’s unrealistic expectations and understanding of his emotions, Joyce narrates the story through the perspective of the boy. All the events within the story are filtered through the boy’s interpretations in order to emphasize that the boy is utterly wrapped up in himself, and his own adoration for his friend’s older sister. All the conversations that take place within the novel are carefully restated by the boy for the audience; “She asked me was I going to the Araby” (Joyce). The narration’s detached approach is to create a distance between the audience and the secondary characters. Because of Joyce’s narration the audience is aware that the boy is failing to understand that a relationship between himself and the girl is unrealistic; “I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not” (Joyce). Relationships are based on communication and a relationship between two people who have never spoken is impossible. Through the first person narrative and the detached method which Joyce takes, the audience does not expect the girl to participate, because she is much older and there is no communication between them. The audience understands the girl only through the boy’s idealistic perception of her.

When the boy decides to bring something back for her from the “Araby” he speaks with foresight to the audience before he recounts his journey in doing so; “what innumerable follies laid waste in my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening”(Joyce). The audience is now alert for the boy’s foolishness. Also, in the beginning of the story, the boy’s narration has foresight, “An uninhabited house of two stories stood at the blind end”(Joyce). The boy does not mean that the street is, in itself, blind, but that he himself is blind throughout the story. Joyce also narrates the events of the story so that even if the boy’s love was true he could not buy the girl anything at the bazaar. The boy’s uncle has forgotten that his nephew wished to go out and arrives home late, and he also gives the boy only enough money for the journey to and from the event, but not to make a substantial purchase, ” I allowed the two pennies fall against the sixpence in my pocket” (Joyce), the boy narrates, as he walks away from the expensive wares, telling the audience that he does not have the money to make the purchase he had dreamed of making. The likelihood of the boy accomplishing his purpose of the journey is very slim.

While Joyce remains narrating from the boy’s perspective, it is when the boy’s perspective changes relating the story to reminiscing on his actions in the situation, that the audience can gain even more understanding of the boy’s folly, and better understand the work as a whole. Joyce’s narration of his “Araby” piece is perfect!