w o t - w h a t

WOT-WHAT is MOVING

2006-02-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

I'm moving my blog to my own site, antoinewilson.com, and I'm switching things over to WordPress. Please be patient with these growing pains. And please update your bookmarks/feeds.

I'll see you at the new W O T - W H A T

crappy surf, blogger *doppelganger sighting

2006-02-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

So this morning (8:55 am) I'm on my way home from surfing, I've had my coffee and all that, and I'm at Ocean and California, more or less, when I see this guy riding some kind of cruiser bicycle with a basket on the front. It's not a performance bike, and he's not all decked out in spandex, so I take notice. He looks like he's going somewhere, or is on his way home from somewhere. Like he's actually using the bike as transportation. He's wearing a leather jacket, too. Something about him feels familiar. As I pass, I get a quick glimpse. We're pretty sure it was lit-blogger Mark Sarvas. If only I'd had my digital camera. I thought real lit-bloggers didn't go outside. Or live in L.A.

*update: Mark informs us it wasn't him: Nope, that wasn't me. I was out this morning but I don't own a cruiser - was in full racing gear and by nine we were around Redondo already. I didn't even know he rode a bike (!). So it was a doppelganger. I'm dubbing him The Inelegant Variation.

Seriously, what happened to GM Quinte is weird...

2006-01-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

Check it out: Correspondence, a True Story

A Public Space: Hitting the Streets

2006-01-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

Issue #1 of A Public Space is hitting the streets in like two weeks. Be sure to check it out. In the meanwhile, you can sign up for the mailing list (or better, subscribe!) on the APS website.

The debut issue is: Charles D'Ambrosio, Kelly Link, Anna Deveare Smith, Haruki Murakami, Marilynne Robinson, Rick Moody, Yoko Ogawa, Motoyuki Shibata, John Haskell, Lucy Raven, Peter Gizzi, Matthea Harvey, Antoine Wilson, Peter Orner, Ian Chillag, Eamon Grennan, Jeremy Glazier, and others. On: Superheroes, Hollywood in the McCarthy Era, translating grapefruit into Japanese, New Jersey porn, Tutsi women, the coal mines of West Virginia, Chekhov, Galileo, Salinger, that weird guy who lives down the street, Bertolt Brecht, digging a hole to China, and more.

I've got a little something in there, in a wonderful section called If You See Something, Say Something.

I did so I did.

In Search of Lost Time

2006-01-25T14:01:00.000-08:00

Why write (or read) Proust's 3,000 page novel when you can just hire a lawyer, sue, and get that lost time back?

The latest thump on the controversial best-seller "A Million Little Pieces" is a Seattle federal court lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of consumers for the "lost time" they spent reading the book.

Look out, literary hoaxers, cuz time is money.

Potpourri

2006-01-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

Dreams, sneezes, kites: Gunther's Block

ALSO:

Lazy Monday
"THE WEST COAST RESPONSE TO SNL'S "CHRONIC OF NARNIA" RAP"

you have to love despair.com

2006-01-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

Real Simple TV

2006-01-05T03:10:00.000-08:00

Letters from Dad
A packet of letters written by Chris Levinson's late father tells old (and new) secrets

Chrissy's incredible (and incredibly moving) Real Simple article is finally available online, thanks to Real Simple's branching out into TV. She's appearing in the first episode (click for description, local listings), airing as soon as January 7th in some parts, so tune in or tivo, folks.

C I C O

2006-01-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

curry in, curry out

Bangkok, Oriental City...

2005-12-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Bangkok, friends!

After two days in Hong Kong, a seemingly bookless wonderland, it was a pleasure to see someone hawking an old copy of Granta in a neighborhood off Khao San Road.

Now off to a Holiday in Cambodia.

On vacation until the 7th....

2005-12-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

See you in the middle of January.

AW

Big surf in Santa Monica last Wednesday

Yiyun Li's Story

2005-12-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post has published an article about short-story writer Yiyun Li's immigration woes. Bloggers Babies Are Fireproof are doing what they can to call attention to her plight while her case awaits appeal. I figured I'd chip in here. Pass the article on to anyone and everyone. She's a tremendous writer, extraordinary even, and we're lucky to have her in this country.

NB I don't know Yiyun personally, and though we have mutual friends, my knowledge of her comes primarily from reading her work. As a naturalized citizen myself, I've experienced the federal immigration bureaucracy firsthand, and it ain't pretty. Yiyun will need all the help/attention/support she can get.

Word to Philip

2005-12-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

From a Philip Roth interview in the Guardian:

"Ha, ha," he says. "Now you're talking! I would be wonderful with a 100-year moratorium on literature talk, if you shut down all literature departments, close the book reviews, ban the critics. The readers should be alone with the books, and if anyone dared to say anything about them, they would be shot or imprisoned right on the spot. Yes, shot. A 100-year moratorium on insufferable literary talk. You should let people fight with the books on their own and rediscover what they are and what they are not. Anything other than this talk. Fairytale talk. As soon as you generalise, you are in a completely different universe than that of literature, and there's no bridge between the two."

[via Slushpile.net]

Or, as Nabokov said:

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me.

Overrated Writers

2005-12-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

Dare we, in a follow-up to the post below, invite commenters, lurkers, litbloggers, and the like to share their picks for Overrated Writers?

Comment away with your top three!

Underrated Writers

2005-12-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

Trevor Jackson and Jeff Bryant, over at The Syntax of Things have an antidote to the ubiquitous year-end best-book wrap-up: A list of Underrated Writers.

...we decided to ask a wide range of litbloggers to tell us the writers who aren't receiving the attention they should. We allowed the contributors to define "receiving attention" however they preferred, whether it be by the NYTBR, or all of print media, or the litbloggers, or some combination, basically however they chose to define it. We asked each to provide us with up to five names and a short explanation as to why each writer deserves more attention.

Since they didn't ask me, or you (presumably), who else do you think should be on the list?

I think Thomas Bernhard is underrated. Or at least underrecognized in these parts.

Pinter's Nobel Speech

2005-12-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

Can be read here.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay...

[Thanks, Grendel, for the link.]

This would be cool...

2005-12-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

...if it were real...

The Secret Diary of a Prisoner in the Creative Writing Gulag

Lewis Robinson is a Gentleman of the Old School

2005-12-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

I wish they'd taught us this at the big-W Workshop

2005-12-07T10:59:00.000-08:00

From Sam Sacks' "THE FICTION MACHINE The Workshop and the hacks", in which he skewers Best New American Voices 2006, workshops, the Workshop, and professors of creative writing:

A Story, as it progresses, is counterbalanced by a Backstory, which informs the reader what of importance happened beforehand. Both Story and Backstory must have a pronounceable Why Now, a meaningful reason that they are being told—something must be At Stake. Regarding meaning and significance, the writer should Show Not Tell through recurring Central Metaphor rather than through dry explanation of what is being felt. Furthermore, a good story has an apt and memorable Voice and conveys a strong Sense of Place.

I must have missed "formula day" at Iowa. Bummer. Probably would have been published sooner.

A popular anecdote that sheds light on an earlier epoch of American literature has F. Scott Fitzgerald, fresh out of Princeton, saying to his fellow alumnus Edmund Wilson, "I want to be one of the greatest writers who ever lived, don't you?" There is naivete in the statement and there is hubris, but the boast also expresses a serious pursuit of greatness that is beautiful and quite spine tingling to any young writer who feels within him the powerful welling of undeveloped talent. But today, such a statement would most likely be met with muffled embarrassment in a workshop, which values the practical ends of publication and employment over this sort of dreaming.

Actually, what I said was "No sleep til Stockholm." And the response wasn't muffled embarassment, but "Fuck you, Antoine," which in those days was the highest compliment available. Sometimes a story would go in, and you'd get a call the next day. "I read your story. Fuck you." Click. Then you knew it was good.

Mostly we learned by reading great literature, and writing a lot, and talking about it a lot, with nudges from professors here and there, professors who weren't trying to shove some formula down our throats but who were trying to impart to us the importance of our calling.* And by sitting around the Foxhead and of the Java House arguing about what was good and what wasn't.

Picking on the BNAV anthology doesn't seem quite fair to me. Of course the stories are going to seem derivative. Writers learn by imitation. Proust learned by imitation. And keep in mind this is an anthology of student work. Now, why would anyone want to read student work? Why is it called Best New American Voices when finding one's "voice" usually takes longer than learning the nuts and bolts of craft? I have no idea. I guess it sells books?

* Plus the mindblowing idea that stories are actually made of words, and that we should pay attention to them.

Something Donald Antrim Said Three Years Ago

2005-12-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

You know when you read something by some other writer and it feels like they're talking about you and your experience? Both of the following Donald Antrim thoughts (from an ancient New Yorker Online piece) had that effect on me when I read them:

The sources of things tend to be hidden in the novels. I think that for me they've had a kind of autobiographical quality, but not in the usual sense—in their more encrypted, codified language.

I think that when I started writing my first novel I wrote it the way I wrote it because it was more fun. It was a way for me to enjoy what I was doing, and this came after some years in which I hadn't really enjoyed very much. I wasn't enjoying much of my life, and I wasn't enjoying writing, and I wasn't very happy with it all, and I started the first novel, and it felt fun. It felt like I had a different set of rules and possibilities. And I felt that if I weren't having fun then there really wouldn't be much reason to be doing this at all.

Then again, these can be summed up:

I. When writing a novel find a way to employ the personal ingredient.
II. When writing a novel have more fun.

Axiomatic Dictionary, Entry #001

2005-12-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

Hollywood, n. Somebody put peanut butter on the dog's nuts.

the conductor's blog

2005-12-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

My conducting, surfing, SAMOHI homie Edwin Outwater has got himself a blog over at myspace, chronicling the life of a hard-working, big-time symphony orchestra conductor on the road. Currently touring with Bocelli on a bus formerly occupied by Greenday. Does it get better than that?

I sold my book!

2005-12-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

Loyal readers and looky-loos, I've got a happy piece of news. My first novel, The Interloper, is going to be published by Other Press / Handsel Books!

As far as I can tell, it's going to hit the shelves in 2007, so start stockpiling your nickels and dimes, kids. More to come as things develop. Maybe even an author photo poll. (Speedos in the hot tub or a kilt in the library?) In the meanwhile, here's a few words about Handsel Books:

Handsel Books publishes poetry, fiction, drama, and literary criticism distinguished by originality, craftsmanship, and, to borrow words from Seamus Heaney's Nobel lecture, "the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values."

And praise from Robert Pinsky:

"Edward Thomas's poetry with Introduction by Peter Sacks, Leslie Epstein's 'Novel from Memory,' Stanley Plumly's essays--all beautifully designed and bound: Handsel Books fulfills my ideal of what a literary publisher should be, a purveyor of excellence."

Word up, Bob.

Telling Tales Out Of (Grad) School, Pt. 1

2005-12-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

The Difference Between Poets and Fiction Writers

My second year of grad school I lived in a farmhouse just outside Iowa City, known to workshoppers at the time as The Farmhouse. (A name accepted by most but not much appreciated by those living in the other farmhouse, a bit further out of town, with a beautiful and historic octagonal barn.)

Typically whoever was living in The Farmhouse was responsible for throwing a few parties every year, including a Halloween party. That's where the above photo comes from. That's me in our kitchen, dressed in my last-minute costume, a spraypainted carboard box (from the basement), some tinfoil, a tie (from the wedding of a friend, since divorced), and a sport coat formerly belonging to Chris Trumbo.

Plus, a rubber rat. He's up there highlighted in red, connected to my lapel by a piece of string. The cardboard box/TV had battery-powered Christmas lights in it, courtesy of poet housemate Meg Buzzi. I was basically going for the anchorman / talking-head look.

Over the course of the night, various people commented on and complimented my costume, and I began to notice a distinct trend in their reactions. Now, there were probably upward of 25 poets and 25 fiction writers at the party. Maybe as many as 40 of each. That's quite a sample.

Here's the rub: Without exception, the response of the fiction writers fell along the lines of "Nice costume, why is there a rat on your TV?" or "I don't get the rat." or "Is that like a rat race thing?" or even "I'd cut the rat." Poets, on the other hand, without exception, responded with "I dig the rat" or "The rat makes the costume" or "Great rat." Frankly, I worried as the night went on that someone would break the trend. No one did.

That, as far as I can tell, is the difference between Poets and Fiction Writers.

Oh yeah, and Poets are more fun to hang out with. And throw better parties. And are better at softball...

Handicapping the NBAs

2005-11-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be great if we could get a breakdown like this on hundreds of literary novelists?

Okay, maybe it wouldn't be great. but it would be fun.

It's Kelly

2005-11-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

Kelly Slater wins seventh world title in Brazil, despite his being eliminated from the Brazil contest in early rounds. Andy Irons eliminated by Nathan Hedge in a nail-biting quarterfinal heat in inconsistent surf. You read it here first, kids. Read it here second.

Literary Darwinism?

2005-11-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

Read about this movement in yesterday's times. The article made me wonder whether it was April Fool's Day. Then it just made me sad.

Snakes in the Can!

2005-10-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

His name is Keith.

I removed the picture. It was just too disturbing. I don't know what posessed me to post it. If you want to see Keith, click here.

[via Defamer]

Free Thomas Bernhard

2005-10-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

That is, Thomas Bernhard for free.

The Lunatics The Inmates by Thomas Bernhard, now available in a special web-translation, courtesy of Conjunctions.

What follows is James Reidel's translation of a sixteen-page poem written early in Thomas Bernhard's career and originally published privately. Though not all of Bernhard's obsessions surface in the poem--the prose passages in particular possess the logic and the structure of thought that would characterize Bernhard's first novel Frost and the novels that followed it. For this e-chapbook, every attempt has been made to preserve the original (and sometimes eccentric) spacing and pagination of the original.

We would like to acknowledge Bernhard's publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, for their willingness to allow us to reprint this poem on the internet.

I don't know if anyone around here is into Bernhard's novels... I continue to be amazed by them. Extinction. Or The Loser. Or even Gargoyles. Any favorites out there in the blogosphere?

Rauschenberg Meets Kookmeyer

2005-10-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

New Surfrider billboards. Um, don't throw your trash in the ocean.

A Public Space

2005-09-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

The A Public Space website is up and running.

Subscribe, sumbit, subsist.

Intelligent Designs

2005-09-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Donny Q We Love You

2005-09-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

Carlos Fuentes, In Praise of the Novel

2005-09-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

David Remnick on Bush in next week's New Yorker.

[via Babies Are Fireproof]

Donate (Red Cross)

Fun with Google Image Search, Part III

2005-08-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

LOL

SFW

NSFW

STFU

Snakes on a Plane!

2005-08-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Snakes on a Plane!
Snakes on a Plane!
Snakes on a Plane!

What it takes...

2005-08-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

"It is harder and harder to break first-time authors out, and for a book to have a shot, the author has to be genius-level talented, Bush-level lucky, or else a hard-assed, deadline-meeting, hustling professional."

How to Be the Perfect Author

Eduardo is Back!

2005-08-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

Thank god.

I'll update my blogroll as soon as blogrolling lets me.

In the meanwhile, here he is.

"I agree and shoot me now."

2005-08-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

I Go to AWP by Kay Ryan.

[from Poetry via Gunther's Block]

Endless Bummer 2005

2005-08-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

aka March of the Penguins 2

hinky

2005-08-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

Do you know the word hinky?

It's not in any dictionary I've checked, including my shorter OED. (Hincty is.)

But people are using it.

In the past few months, I've heard it in reference to television plot twists, A/V cable hookups, and furniture construction. Usage-wise, hinky seems to be heading in the direction of rickety, half-assed, and mickey-mouse, impying poor construction. (Construction that would arouse suspicion?)

Where does this word come from? A possible explanation is here...starting with hincty:

First recorded in the 1920s, hincty has two distinct senses. The first is found almost exclusively in Black English, and means 'snobbish; haughty; conceited; aloof; fastidious'. Example: "She wasn't a bit hinkty like so many folks when they're light-complexioned and up in the money" (Langston Hughes, Ways of White Folks, 1934). This word is of unknown origin.

The second sense is apparently the one you have in mind: 'wary or extremely cautious; feeling suspicion', a sense used chiefly by the police and members of the criminal underworld. This also dates from the 1920s, but was never very common.

The second word is your hinky. This seems to be a variant of hincty, with the medial -t- lost for ease of pronunciation. Hinky is extremely rare in the sense 'snobbish', but it quite common as a police and underworld term for 'wary', and hence 'nervous or jumpy'. The word is often found in crime novels.

As a police and underworld term, hinky can also mean 'arousing suspicion' (in English, suspicious can mean both 'feeling suspicion' and 'arousing suspicion', so we can separate hinky into both meanings as well).

Does anyone else find it interesting that a word meaning 'aloof' and 'haughty' in Black English carries a secondary meaning of 'suspicious' in Cop English?

The Future of Retro is Now

2005-08-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

Donny Q Where r u?

2005-07-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

Howard Jacobson worries about the lack of irresponsibility in modern fiction.

Air China

2005-07-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

This might be more up the alley of someone like author and skater Bret Johnston, but I thought I'd post it here anyway.

Danny Way Jumps Great Wall of China on a Skateboard

Yeah, that's a 360 he's halfway through.

I'll take water over hard ground anyday.

Holiday in the Sun

2005-07-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, Holiday Reinhorn's short-story collection Big Cats has just come out, and it kicks ass. Check it out.

Instead of writing a story...

2005-07-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

...I drew a pig.

RIP Shelby Foote

2005-06-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

Shelby Foote to Walker Percy, 18 Feb 1952

I think each book has its own problems. All a writer can do is tackle it on its own terms, see it the clearest he can, and then sail in. Each is a voyage beset by shoals. If he fails, he fails and thats most miserable...but there is a great resource left--there will be other books and other problems; life is long and the individual facets of Art are fleeting, except of course in the long view: which no writer ever takes, being a particular sort of fool, & therefore wise.

Part of the difference between us proceeds from a basic difference of approach. You, I think, believe that you have something to TELL people, and youd appreciate any help from anywhere that you thought would enable you to TELL them this thing more effectively; also you have a sort of modesty. I'm different on both counts. I don't want to TELL anybody anything; I want to SHOW them--I believe that is the only way to tell them; I want to communicate a view of the world; I think thats true wisdom. So that our difference springs from the fact that you think my end-endeavor is merely a stop on the way and you are willing to jump over it, take the word of others as to how to accomplish it--you want to get by it as swiftly and effectively as possible...Youre so wrong. Youll come before long to see that I am right; wisdom is frequently just an ability to see that you passed the really important point somewhere back down the line--as in this case. DONT PASS IT; STOP AND SEE WHAT I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN. If you let anyone fiddle with your way of seeing--fiddle deliberately, I mean: not by example but by pointing out--youll nick this instrument beyond repair; youll wind up with nothing but regrets.

Thursday: To Do

2005-06-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

Check out random sample pages from Xlibris' publishing service:

It's easy--and fun!!

Copy and paste the following into your browser:
http://xlibris.com/bookstore/book_excerpt.asp?bookid=

Then, at the end, where it says "bookid=" type a number between 1 and 2000. You might experiment with numbers outside that range, too. 10000 is invalid, but 10001 has a sample page. I found some as high was 20000.

Any favorites yet? This is mine so far. Opening line: Cy stood erect from a scrootch position.

What Could Go Wrong?

2005-06-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

Everything.

[via the Onion]

How advances are calculated!

2005-06-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Too lazy to read the Guardian article below?

Here's the best/worst part:

Williams punched Carpenter's forecast into an in-house spreadsheet that uses the estimate to compute a suggested advance to be paid to the author. "The problem is that it almost always comes up with a figure of about £4,000, so you have to ignore it," says Williams. By Monday morning, she had made a low five-figure offer.

How Sausages--oops!--Books Get Made

2005-06-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

More than 100,000 books are published every year in the UK. Some go on to become multimillion bestsellers, the vast majority do not. Oliver Burkeman follows the 18-month-long journey of one novel, from the author's flash of inspiration in a pub, to the moment it hit the shelves at Books Etc

How to Make a Book from the Guardian.

Someday, when I get a book "made," I'll blog out the whole process...from the author's splash of inspiration in a hot tub to the moment it hits the shelves at mom & dad's house...

Hooray for Hollywood

2005-06-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'm learning more about good promotion every day.

Christmas Comes Early This Year, Kids

2005-06-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

NY Times: The New Yorker, the weekly magazine that started as "a hectic book of gossip, cartoons and facetiae," as Louis Menand once wrote, and has evolved into a citadel of narrative nonfiction and investigative reporting, will publish its entire 80-year archives on searchable computer discs this fall. They're saying it's gonna cost like $100.

Me and my buddy, Interior Minister Otto Schilly

2005-06-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Me and my buddy, Interior Minister Otto Schilly
Originally uploaded by dontoine.

Schilly was also the defense lawyer for various members of the Bader-Meinhof gang, aka Red Army Faction, back in the day.

Publicity Budget $$$$$$$$$

2005-06-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, I opened my mailbox to a nice looking 6 x 9 inch envelope from The New Yorker. Hefty for its size, almost four dollars in postage to send it my way first-class.

What was inside? A free copy of Simon Doonan's book Nasty and a xeroxed note from David Rosenthal, executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster books, hoping I'll enjoy the book and "graciously help spread the fun and good words" to my friends.

Did anyone else get one of these? Did they pick people randomly, or according to some New Yorker profiling? I can only assume that they couldn't send one of these to every subscriber... Or could they? Maybe I'm some kind of a tastemaker. I have influence! I have a blog!

Nobody reads it!

Weekend Update

2005-05-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

Jack Livings drops some mad science, with his story The Dog, in the latest issue of The Paris Review. Check it out.

quick post from berlin

2005-05-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

Brigid Hughes, former editor of the Paris Review, is starting a new magazine. It's called a public space.

Off to Yurp

2005-05-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

See you all in June!

new house / new site

2005-05-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

CONGRATULATIONS to WOODY on his NEW HOUSE

And, plus, I finally registered a URL and put together the beginnings of a site. I want it to be more fun than it is, while retaining the low-clutter look. Any suggestions? What do y'all think so far? Fans of blogger-poet Gunther Quinte will enjoy a portal into his world, which I've offered to piggyback on my server until GQ gets a place of his own...unlikely, I say. I mean, the guy lives in his cousin's pool house.

Check it out and lemme know what you think:

antoinewilson.com

Supergrover Terrorizes Central Park West

2005-05-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

Supergrover Terrorizes Central Park West
Originally uploaded by dontoine.

presence

2005-04-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

Blas Manuel de Luna

2005-04-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

Look who's been added to the blogroll! BMD

My Flickr Meets My Blogger

2005-04-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

Mike in Iowa City Bird Blind
Originally uploaded by dontoine.

Finally. Here's Savitz watching a nuthatch dive-bomb his eyeballs.

Mandate?

2005-04-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports.

The Grey Lady outdoes the Onion with this one.

Springtime in the LBC

2005-04-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

What would happen if all of your favorite lit blogs got together and...um, got together?

The Lit Blog Co-op

Check it out.

[thanks to Dan Wickett and the EWN for the hook-up.]

One More Frank

2005-04-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

I remember a party at Joy Williams' house--she was visiting that semester--during my second year at the workshop. Frank was sitting on the couch, enjoying "a beer and a bump"--bottle of beer, shot of whisky, and we were all bullshitting about something or other.

A certain first-year student--of whom Frank was fond--asked him point-blank:

"What's the secret to writing a novel?"

It was one of those moments when you feel like the buzz has been completely killed. Frank smiled, though, and rescued the buzz while also dispensing some of the most powerful, useless, useful, stupid, brilliant advice I've ever heard on the subject.

"The secret? The secret? I'll tell you the secret!"

He lowered his voice.

"The secret to writing a novel is three things."

We leaned in.

"You've got to set it up. You've got to run it. And you've got to shut it down."

Now you all know.

Any guesses as to who the student was?

The Reign of Shit

2005-04-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

Two minutes of Frank Conroy, from an introduction he gave years ago. [mp3, 832K]

.

2005-04-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

Frank died yesterday. We are going to miss him very much.

[IWW Graduation, Spring 1999, Frank holding mustard packets and diplomas.]

Paul Ingram, of Prairie Lights Books, with a brief, perfect tribute.

Did somebody say AUTHOR PHOTO?

2005-04-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

Author Photos

2005-04-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

New blogrolee Tod Goldberg takes a look at some very special author photos.

On the same topic, the Ettlinger Effect:

Before:

After:

RIP Saul Bellow

2005-04-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

more blogrolling

2005-04-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Paul Ingram, of Prairie Lights, has a new blog. [Fixed the link. It's called Mister Nouse]

And here's another dose of young Iowans, including old notes from Frank Conroy's workshop. V v good.

"Everyone Else" online

2005-04-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

The Paris Review has posted my story, "Everyone Else" online, for your reading pleasure!

New to the blogroll...

2005-04-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

Babies are Fireproof (03-04?) Iowa MFA mafiosos. Vicarious visions of yesteryears.

Added the Emerging Writers' Network a little while back. I love getting Dan Wickett's emails. The guy works hard getting the word out. Sign up, kids!

And Daniel Alarcon. Has a book coming out. Curtis Sittenfeld's book Prep is already out and blowing up on the NYT bestseller list. Holy shit.

I'm thinking of adding a bunch more emerging author homepages to my blogroll. Who has them? Anyone?

Self-promote, or shill your cronies, via comment...

2005-03-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

Lie, Memory, Michael Chabon's Own Private Holocaust, by Paul Maliszewski

When does an author have the responsibility to the let the reader know he or she is mixing fact and fiction, autobiography and mythology?

I might be a little late to this but...

2005-03-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

Reductive Literary Equations

(The Hardy Boys)^1.618 = The Da Vinci Code
Bukowski - Byron = Last Exit to Brooklyn
Moby Dick - genius = Jaws

[from I Love Books via GalleyCat]

Googlebation part XXX

2005-03-30T11:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not a Real Estate Agent in Minnesota.

Antoine Wilson

You know you're a phenom when...

2005-03-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

Limited Edition Prep Belt by A Tierney

[enjoying the book very much, by the way...kudos to Curtis!!!]

Pessoa

2005-03-23T18:06:00.000-08:00

From "A Factless Autobiography":

90

To recognize reality as a form of illusion and illusion as a form of reality is equally necessary and equally useless. The contemplative life, to exist at all, must see real-life accidents as the scattered premises of an unattainable conclusion, but it must also consider the contingencies of dreams as in some sense worthy of the attention we give them, since this attention is what makes us contemplatives.

Anything and everything, depending on how one sees it, is a marvel or a hindrance, an all or nothing, a path or a problem. To see something in constantly new ways is to renew and multiply it. That is why the contemplative person, without ever leaving his village, will nevertheless have the whole universe at his disposal. There's infinity in a cell or a desert. One can sleep cosmically against a rock.

But there are times in our meditation - and they come to all who meditate - when everything is suddenly worn-out, old, seen and reseen, even though we have yet to see it. Because no matter how much we meditate on something, and through meditation transform it, whatever we transform it into can only be the substance of meditation. At a certain point we are overwhelmed by a yearning for life, by a desire to know without the intellect, to meditate with only our senses, to think in a tactile or sensory mode, from inside the object of our thought, as if it were a sponge and we were water. And so we also have our night, and the profound weariness produced by emotions becomes even more profound, since in this case the emotions come from thought. But it's a night without slumber or moon or stars, a night as if all had been turned inside out - infinity internalized and ready to burst, and the day converted into the black lining of an unfamiliar suit.

Yes, it's always better to be the human slug that loves what it doesn't know, the leech that's unaware of how repugnant it is. To ignore so as to live! To feel in order to forget! Ah, and all the events lost in the green-white wake of age-old ships, like a cold spit off the tall rudder that served as a nose under the eyes of the ancient cabins!

Doomsday Device

2005-03-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

Remixed car safety video: Operation Joyride

[via the very entertaining Coudal Partners]

We don't need no stinking CONTEXT

2005-03-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

Bush: "Albert Camus said that freedom is a long-distance race." From Camus' The Fall, so it must be European, anti-terrorist, sophsticated...Uh, but, um...

Vladimir Nabokov said that you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Samuel Clemens said that you wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne get hung.

National Magazine Award Nominees

2005-03-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

Well folks the American Society of Magazine Editors has spoken and the Finalists for the 2005 National Magazine Awards have been announced. The New Yorker is well represented, as usual, in many categories. Also, as usual, the ASME folks have passed up My Favorite Publications, Surfer and Found. But what's most exciting to me is that The Paris Review, under the wise leadership of Brigid Hughes, has received a nomination for excellence in magazine fiction writing, and they cite my story "Everyone Else" as one of the reasons. Morning wood.

Edimification

2005-03-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Oh.. that's right... I promised some edification. This one goes out to all ya'll Gawker-stalkers out there, Metafilter-addicts, and compulsive readers of Google news:

Every morning brings us the news of the globe, and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories. This is because no event any longer comes to us without already being shot through with explanation. In other words, by now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; almost everything benefits information. Actually, it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from explanation as one reproduces it.

{Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller," dropping knowledge like Galileo dropped the orange.}

...

Okay, good, but what's the other half of the art of storytelling?

Boo!

2005-03-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

From Charles Mcgrath's review of Ashbery's new book in the NYT:

Ashbery has written more than 20 books -- most of them of consistently high quality, with the exception of the tedious ''Flow Chart'' -- and he has been around so long, reinventing himself over and over again, that the experience of reading him now is a little like re-enacting the central drama of most Ashbery poems: the experience of suddenly coming upon something that is both deeply familiar and more than a little strange.

I thought FLOW CHART was the bomb. I didn't think it was tedious or of less than high quality. Actually, it blew my mind. What do you all, all two of you, think of FLOW CHART? Tedious or not?

It's Friday Fun Time

2005-03-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Rappin Jelly Donut: MAXIMUM WAGE

Scroll down to "Maximum Wage" video, watch it in Quicktime.

BONUS: "Hey dude!" Matt Shindell turned me on to this one:

SOCCER PRACTICE

Scroll down to "Soccer Practice" video, watch it in Real Media.

According to Eduardo, that's Matt's arm in the picture of Keith below:

It's been almost a month...

2005-03-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

since the blogging community lost resident aphorist and occasional sillimanesque ejaculator Aaron McCollough. Here is his final post, with commentary.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Last Broadcast [Too Short also retired.]

And...like Tost...I'm out. [Of the toaster.] If you are interested in the question of my merits as a poet [There was a question?], please read my books. [What about your merits as a blogger?] Good or bad, the proof should be there more or less. [The PUDDING] Otherwise, godspeed you. [Don't you mean fuck off?]

I hope you'll check in with GutCult every winter and summer. [What's GutCult?]

Life [seriously?], wife [okay], and writing [what will you do with the other 23 hours of the day?] call and call me back to my notebooks[Ooohhh!]...away from the blip. [And professional sports?]

This was an interesting experiment. [It was all just an experiment?] I'm glad we did this. [Does this mean I have to go now, too? But my loyal reader(s)!]

Coming soon to WOT-WHAT: Edification!

Literary Crush Revealed!!!

2005-02-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

Okay folks, I haven't been too active over here (novel revisions + great NW swell = no "free" time) but let's jump start this blog again by revealing the object of my literary crush as mentioned in Curtis' NYTBR article and my post below.

It's NOT:
Alice Munro
Susan Sontag
Joan Didion
Margaret Atwood
Joyce Carol Oates

But thanks for playing.

It IS:

Need I name names?

This novel won't revise itself

2005-01-25T15:17:00.000-08:00

Quagmire

big in germany?

2005-01-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

the hasselhoffian recursion

via mefi

New One Not Me

2005-01-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

Antoine Wilson?

Rx for Laffs

2004-12-23T21:44:00.000-08:00

Googlebation, part 1,000:

I'm not a comic

Sunday's Book Review...

2004-12-22T13:59:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering, yeah, I'm the Antoine quoted in Curtis's article on literary crushes.

Here's the paragraph:

These are skilled writers, and some I admire greatly, but I'm pretty sure that their talent isn't the only reason men have a thing for them. Basically, I'm not convinced that female writers can transcend their hotness, that they can elicit lust based on literary prowess alone -- not because they're women, that is, but because they're writers. In an exception that proves the rule, my friend Antoine read the works of a well-known novelist and critic and developed ''the most epic crush of all time'' on her. ''Something about her prose made me think that she was of such companionable intelligence that I felt deeply attracted to her, whoever she might be,'' he said. Or at least he felt that way until he saw her picture and realized she's in her 70's, 40 years his senior.

Anyone willing to venture a guess as to the object of the crush?

Reading in NYC

2004-11-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

Bored? In NYC? Come see me read at the Small Press Book Fair.

Wot: Editor Brigid Hughes introduces three emerging Paris Review writers, who will read from their work.

Wen: Saturday, December 4 @ 5 pm.

Wear: The Small Press Center, 20 West 44th Street in the landmark General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen building in midtown Manhattan.

Cost: Nada nada nada, not a damn thing.

"I believe in a culture of life..."

2004-11-16T10:44:00.000-08:00

I have seen many editorials, read many blogs, and heard many opinions in which people say "Shit, if San Diego (or Tulsa, or Birmingham) was invaded, I'd be fighting, too." Yeah, me too. Duh.

But aren't we actually fighting the foreign terror element who swooped into Iraq after the invasion? To make the real Iraqis safe and democratic? Um, no.

From the LA Times: Few Foreigners Among Insurgents:

Of the more than 1,000 men between the ages of 15 and 55 who were captured in intense fighting in the center of the insurgency over the last week, just 15 are confirmed foreign fighters, Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said Monday.

Turns out Shock and Awe doesn't win Hearts and Minds.

Also, pictures from Falluja.

DNA of Literature

2004-11-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

The new Paris Review website is up, with the first of their installments of the DNA of literature...all their interviews...EVER. Well, okay, they're only up to 1959, but they're moving forward. People say the new issue has hit the streets, too, but I haven't seen it yet. For real.

Yardley v Salinger

2004-10-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

If I were any kind of blogger whatsoever, I would respond here to Jonathan Yardley's lame-ass piece on The Catcher in the Rye from last week's Washington Post. (I belong to the quiet majority who believe the book to be a masterpiece.) But, hey, I'm a crappy blogger, and so I'll just link to someone else's reasoned and measured response to the piece (Michael Schaub, posting on Bookslut).

Btw, I came across Yardley's piece while browsing the excellent Arts & Letters Daily, first brought to my attention by the Detroit Mastermind, aka John Woodward.

Props

2004-10-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

Big ups to Sarah Shun-lien Bynum for her National Book Award nomination. Madeleine Is Sleeping is epic.

Hollywood or Would They Not

2004-10-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

Query Letters I Love.
[via Defamer]

#7

"ON A WORLD KNOWN AS GUIYA, THE ELFIN KINGDOM OF VALKHARAIS THREATENED BY A DARK AND EVIL FORCE. DESCHARDON, THE DEATHLORD, UNLEASHES HIS ARMY OF GORG UPONTHE LANDS OF GUIYA IN HOPE TO MAKE THE WORLD HIS SOLE EMPIRE. HIS FORCE IS LED BY HIS FIVE INSPIRITED GENERALS, THE SHAYNELORDS AND IS FOLLOWED BY A DARK AND MENACING CLOUD THAT STRETCHES OVER THE CONQUERED NATIONS, SIGNIFYING THE DEATHLORD'S RULE OVER THEM."

Shoot Me Now (L.A. Melrose edition)

2004-10-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

[via Defamer]

New Album: William Shatner and Ben Folds

2004-10-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

"For me, this album conveys 98% of what I would like to have conveyed." W.S.