This link takes you to a Guernica post with several MP3 files where you can listen to an in-depth interview.

Bolaño's opus

The market has its landlords, like everything on this infected planet, and it’s the landlords of the market who decide the mambo that you dance, whether it’s selling cheap condoms or Latin American novels in the U.S. I say this because the central idea of Pollack’s work is that behind the construction of the Bolaño myth was not only a publisher’s marketing operation but also a redefinition of the image of Latin American culture and literature that the North American cultural establishment is now selling to the public.

It’s refreshing to hear external voices reminding those of us in the US how easy it is to channel our interests. America is a myth-building myth-consuming culture eager to mindlessly support highly editorialized marketing directed at the core tenets of our cultural psyche – revolutionaries and ideologues excite our passions and support our myths of genius. After reading this article, I am actually comforted by the fact that it’s OK to create genius work from within the stability of a supportive family life. Let’s be honest, that’s really the dream isn’t it? To create beautiful work without necessarily subjecting ourselves to the pain we so often associate with it?

“2666″ is sitting on my shelf at home beckoning to me. I can hardly wait.

Oh how I aspire to someday participate in NaNoWriMo, the month-long online group-quest to write a novel. Every October, the guilt of NOT participating throughout the coming November begins to set in and every November 1st it becomes more difficult to sit idly by. Somehow, however, I will soldier on…

For those of you sitting at home wondering what to do today and feeling inspired, you should join NaNoWriMo, it’s not too late – in fact, you’re right on time. The video below is the kickoff for the month-long endeavor. You can learn all you need to know at NaNoWriMo.org.

On a side note, if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time, let me know by emailing me at eric [at] thepugetnews.com or just leaving a comment below with your interest. I’d love to interview you on the experience for The Puget News. Perhaps it will give you fuel for the fire and help power you through the finish line.

I was reading the FT Weekend Magazine on a flight back from Frankfurt this weekend and came upon a fascinating closing piece about German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and his use of index cards to map out complex series of thought. I have heard repeatedly of Vladimir Nabokov’s system of using index cards to plot his novels by exploring various juxtapositions and settling on an order for his carded prose but what I liked most about Luhmann’s system was that it was a rigorous mapping of a thought process, something I hadn’t heard of before.

What Luhmann did was number each card:

If an entry got the number 57/12, for example, and took up more space than one card would allow, the second card would be 57/13. But if an observation within that first card led to a separate branch of thought, the index card would get the number 57/12a – which could run on to 57/12b.

Luhmann used the index cards to map out and develop ideas, thoughts and theories. He wound up with labels as long as 21/3d26g53 – the number of a card discussing his academic rival, Jürgen Habermas.

The claim was that this numbered system of cards allowed Luhmann “to think about society in non-linear and non-hierarchical ways.” The beauty of this system is that it allowed him to link up disparate areas of thought, via a mechanism that resembled an early, and very non-communal, wiki. Whenever Luhmann needed to refer to a thought or string of logic, he could short-hand it by inserting the referring number.

I, for one, think this would be a great project for somebody to put online at some point. I’d love to see the index cards and view the hyper-links between them.

I’ve always loved this poem and now I’ll have a beat to drop to it.

[via The Elegant Variation]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
Questa fiamma staria sensa piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero
Sensa tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
‘That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.’

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Riding the elevator up on the way to work today, one of our QA engineers mentioned to me that he had no idea how our team was going to hit a deliverable for Monday. Our devo site is in too much flux to be certain that we will stabilize it in time. Shrugging, I channeled Philip Henslowe (played by Geoffrey Rush), the hapless theatre owner from “Shakespeare in Love” and stated “it’s a mystery.” That’s when somebody else on the elevator chimed in and said, “what you need is deus ex machina.”

Boy do I work with some smart people.

“Deus ex machina” means “God from a machine” but it derives from the world of Greek tragedy (especially referring to the plays of Euripides) and refers to the use of a cheap plot device to resolve difficult situations in the drama. The Wikipedia article uses the 1978 “Superman” movie as a more modern day example. Remember when Lois Lane gets buried in her car and dies only to have Superman reverse time by flying around the globe so fast that time reversed? Superman had never previously unveiled this talent and I’m not so sure he ever used it again, it was just a bit too convenient. That’s deus ex machina.

Aristotle’s “Poetics” has this to say about the use of deus ex machina:

It is therefore evident that the unraveling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the deus ex machina – as in the Medea, or in the return of the Greeks in the Iliad. The deus ex machina should be employed only for events external to the drama – for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things. Within the action there must be nothing irrational. If the irrational cannot be excluded, it should be outside the scope of the tragedy. Such is the irrational element the Oedipus of Sophocles.

George Saunders has written an entertaining short piece for the New Yorker about an Amazon nun and a supposedly gay preacher he catches French kissing in the sacristy. If you don’t question your religious practitioner, it might be time to start.

Now here she was, French-kissing Father X, while Father X pinned her against the black-topped counter, one leg riding up between hers. Something about their position suggested a mother bird feeding her young. She was reaching down to give him something; he was reaching up to take it. Behind them, aghast, sat the holy implements.

Father X, it had been rumored, was gay. He was pale, slight.

Hereby that rumor was refuted.

Or at least complicated.

This is my first experience reading Vinge and I’m excited by the possibility of picking up a few more of his books. “Rainbows End” opens fantastically, intertwining thoughts on politics, scientific research, psychology and technology into an unholy amalgamation which sets the story cranking. While not quite the frenetic pace of the opening scenes in “Snow Crash,” it was darned close – a slightly dystopian vision of technology-enabled society and its impact upon our collective consciousness. This society is one never-ending stream of interruptions and threats. Real-world protests occurring for millions of fans while a small group of government spooks investigate the possibility of a terrible new weapon.

The July 18 Pseudomimi and the advertising at the football match – together they amounted to an extremely well disguised test of a new weapon concept. In its developed form, such a weapon would make the Sunrise Plague look like a malignant toy. At the least, biological warfare would become as precise and surprising as bullets and bombs: slyly infect a population with the slow random spread of disease, all but undetected, and then bam, blind or maim or kill – singly with an email, or by the billions with a broadcast, too quickly for any possible “defense against disease.”

Unfortunately, after about the first 100 pages or so, the story becomes a bit derailed and tired, eventually chugging to a stop after a lackluster climax. The characters all have Dickensian quirks but lack depth. The plot is an artificial structure made only to hold the ideas which are indeed dazzling. The writing is lyrical and sharp. While this is all good enough, it’s not great. It’s recommended only for those singularity/futurist types who really lap this stuff up.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to which Vinge I should try next? They’re all open game… If you do, please post it in the comments.

Evidently, Mark Twain went a bit existentialist as he aged and spent the final 20 years of his life working off and on on a story encapsulating some epiphanies related to the dream-like nature of life. What he came up with is a bit darker than most people would probably believe came from Twain.

It’s worth while to take a few minutes to read the wikipedia article on “The Mysterious Stranger” before watching the creepy video below. Just call it your literary moment of the day.

First of all, congratulations to Doris Lessing.

I’ve never read her work before but I’ve been thinking about starting a series of blog posts where I read all of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature and write about the experience. Have any of you read Doris Lessing? Any thoughts on what book I should start with? I read in her wikipedia entry that she considers the Canopus in Argos series to be her most important work to date.

If you have ideas on which Doris Lessing book I should start with, please suggest it in the comments.

Update: You can check out the New York Times article here. I love the photo of Doris Lessing sitting there in disbelief on her front porch.

Stout, sharp and a bit hard of hearing, after a few moments Ms. Lessing excused herself to go inside. “Now I’m going to go in to answer my telephone,” she said. “I swear I’m going upstairs to find some suitable sentences which I will be using from now on.”

Update 2: With everyone getting in on the action, it was only a matter of time before Kakutani weighed in.