Oct 12
MattBriggs commented on Here Comes Seattle Bookfest.
MattBriggs commented on Here Comes Seattle Bookfest.
You weren't rude at all. I was just saying "Hey!" because the title taken out of context is as you rightly point out is lit-geeky in the extreme.
The short title of the reading is: "Why would I lie?" An essayist named Tim Elhajj and I both tell really short stories that seem/are true. Tim has an essay here: http://tinyurl.com/whywouldilie.
I don't know if I think (as Paul seems to be half-joking here in his post) if Seattle is too small for multiple bookfest. The fact is Seattle seems to have constant bookfests going on. On the Esoteric Book Conference was in mid-Sept. Last weekend was the Antiquarian Bookfest. Next weekend is the Anarchist Book Festival, and now there is the new Seattle Book Fest. I am glad the organizers of the festival were as ambitious as they were to attempt to pull of a festival in the monolithic spirit of Wordstock (in Portland) or the old, defunct NW Bookfest. But those events had sponsors, and in this case there is just two people in Columbia City who said they wanted to hold a book fest.
In many ways it is probably better they didn't achieve something on the scale of the NW Bookfest, which was a good thing to have (in theory) but kind of chilly in execution. It seemed too huge and unwieldy for its own good. People complained the first year about how cold (in temperature) it was in Pier 48, and then waxed nostalgic for Pier 48 every year thereafter.
As a matter of scale, there isn't a single out of town name such as Normal Mailer or John Updike who will read. [Although last week there was in Seattle Margaret Atwood, Annie Proulx, and Sherman Alexie.] Instead it is all local authors, but it is kind of handy to have them all on one bill, I think. I go to a lot of readings but there will be a lot of people I've never seen such as Staphanie Kallos, Eric Liu, Midge Raymond, Pete Dexter, and William Dietrich. And there are a lot of readers I have seen and would like to see again. It seems kind of okay to me that is local.
More...
The short title of the reading is: "Why would I lie?" An essayist named Tim Elhajj and I both tell really short stories that seem/are true. Tim has an essay here: http://tinyurl.com/whywouldilie.
I don't know if I think (as Paul seems to be half-joking here in his post) if Seattle is too small for multiple bookfest. The fact is Seattle seems to have constant bookfests going on. On the Esoteric Book Conference was in mid-Sept. Last weekend was the Antiquarian Bookfest. Next weekend is the Anarchist Book Festival, and now there is the new Seattle Book Fest. I am glad the organizers of the festival were as ambitious as they were to attempt to pull of a festival in the monolithic spirit of Wordstock (in Portland) or the old, defunct NW Bookfest. But those events had sponsors, and in this case there is just two people in Columbia City who said they wanted to hold a book fest.
In many ways it is probably better they didn't achieve something on the scale of the NW Bookfest, which was a good thing to have (in theory) but kind of chilly in execution. It seemed too huge and unwieldy for its own good. People complained the first year about how cold (in temperature) it was in Pier 48, and then waxed nostalgic for Pier 48 every year thereafter.
As a matter of scale, there isn't a single out of town name such as Normal Mailer or John Updike who will read. [Although last week there was in Seattle Margaret Atwood, Annie Proulx, and Sherman Alexie.] Instead it is all local authors, but it is kind of handy to have them all on one bill, I think. I go to a lot of readings but there will be a lot of people I've never seen such as Staphanie Kallos, Eric Liu, Midge Raymond, Pete Dexter, and William Dietrich. And there are a lot of readers I have seen and would like to see again. It seems kind of okay to me that is local.
Oct 12
MattBriggs commented on Here Comes Seattle Bookfest.
MattBriggs commented on Here Comes Seattle Bookfest.
#3 Hey! (re:pretty abstruse ("The Non-fiction Flash: micro-memoir", anyone?)
Oct 9
MattBriggs commented on Country Boy.
MattBriggs commented on Country Boy.
I saw this interview and thought this person was rational and even patient based on his interview. The city/country conflict usually seems about the conflict between the rational (city) and the irrational (country). I'm uncertain, however, if this a real thing, but rather a way of seeing things. In this case, the boy was from beyond even the rural/country, but seemed to exist in another space altogether. I imagine, though, you are playing the part often played by my contrarian uncles, and this contrariness further obscures the hidden narrative here by what it does not say.
The man learned how to build a windmill from a library supplied by the United States. Why did the United States feel obligated to build a library in Africa in the first place? We are not building libraries in Spain or LIverpool, as far as I know. His story plays into a narrative that avoids the reality of Africa's colonial history. The subtext is that African kids shouldn't kill and rape each other, but should build windmills! A truly pollyanna idea, but really who can't agree with it? I don't see that having nothing to do with some guy who built a windmill. It has more to do with the journalists who wrote his story and a Western audience searching for a narrative that makes something positive out of what has been done to Africa.
More...
The man learned how to build a windmill from a library supplied by the United States. Why did the United States feel obligated to build a library in Africa in the first place? We are not building libraries in Spain or LIverpool, as far as I know. His story plays into a narrative that avoids the reality of Africa's colonial history. The subtext is that African kids shouldn't kill and rape each other, but should build windmills! A truly pollyanna idea, but really who can't agree with it? I don't see that having nothing to do with some guy who built a windmill. It has more to do with the journalists who wrote his story and a Western audience searching for a narrative that makes something positive out of what has been done to Africa.
Sep 14
MattBriggs commented on Where the Hell Has MacAdam/Cage Gone?.
MattBriggs commented on Where the Hell Has MacAdam/Cage Gone?.
This sucks if they have gone out of business. But I'm glad someone is reporting it. I think they were going to release the new William Gay book, too.
Sep 3
MattBriggs commented on I'm Going to Sue If You Give a Mouse a Cookie For Lying About Human/Mouse Relations.
MattBriggs commented on I'm Going to Sue If You Give a Mouse a Cookie For Lying About Human/Mouse Relations.
@17 nice.
Herge regretted Tintin in the Congo, which is a really bad book anyway you want to slice it, but not as bad as TinTin in the Land of the Soviets. I sure hope this doesn't mean that bad books can be sued... Herge only agreed to republishing TinTin in the Congo because it was a big seller on the blackmarket, IN THE CONGO. (Herge if anything wanted to get paid.)
TinTin is built on stereotypes, though, but some of them, such as TinTin himself, they seem like types, but the type is a mystery. How old is TinTin? Just how affectionate is he with Captain Haddock? Have you ever noticed the diagram of buttocks in Destination Moon? All is revealed in this great book:
http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.ph…
Herge regretted Tintin in the Congo, which is a really bad book anyway you want to slice it, but not as bad as TinTin in the Land of the Soviets. I sure hope this doesn't mean that bad books can be sued... Herge only agreed to republishing TinTin in the Congo because it was a big seller on the blackmarket, IN THE CONGO. (Herge if anything wanted to get paid.)
TinTin is built on stereotypes, though, but some of them, such as TinTin himself, they seem like types, but the type is a mystery. How old is TinTin? Just how affectionate is he with Captain Haddock? Have you ever noticed the diagram of buttocks in Destination Moon? All is revealed in this great book:
http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.ph…
Jul 9
MattBriggs commented on My Point.
MattBriggs commented on My Point.
Thanks, Charles. I also think a poet of sprawl is not only possible, but a poetry of sprawl is already being written. For instance, Matthew McIntosh's great book about Federal Way: "Well." And I think Walt Whitman could be seen as a precursor to the poetry of sprawl.
Jun 2
MattBriggs commented on Anyone Want to Split the Cost of an ISBN Scanner?.
MattBriggs commented on Anyone Want to Split the Cost of an ISBN Scanner?.
Goodreads and LIbraryThing both let you export your existing books as a CVS file, and from there you can probably get your book list into all kinds of aps.
I actually used the CueCat from LibraryThing (notice it in the thread above that it was a "bad" product). But for 15 bucks, it did the trick and I was able to scan in must about all of my books with bar-code ISBN numbers. I could have typed them in, but after a couple of hundred I would have stopped, and that wouldn't have pleased my insane impulse to have every single book I own in the LibraryThing database. The scanner worked fine. I loaned to it a friend and they were able to do scan their books in as well. Many of my older books, however, don't have ISBN bar-codes, and so had to be entered by hand.
I actually used the CueCat from LibraryThing (notice it in the thread above that it was a "bad" product). But for 15 bucks, it did the trick and I was able to scan in must about all of my books with bar-code ISBN numbers. I could have typed them in, but after a couple of hundred I would have stopped, and that wouldn't have pleased my insane impulse to have every single book I own in the LibraryThing database. The scanner worked fine. I loaned to it a friend and they were able to do scan their books in as well. Many of my older books, however, don't have ISBN bar-codes, and so had to be entered by hand.
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