 | Former CIA Agent Peter Matthiessen Wins National Book Award for "Shadow Country"by Miracle Jones |
Funny coincidence: the magazine then got famous and popular for its uncompromising interviews and for its ability to track down famous writers and get them to talk.
Huh.
Anyway, this year's National Book Award for Fiction went to old man Peter Matthiessen for his book "Shadow Country," a book about a killer, seducer, con artist, and planter named Edgar J. Watson. People are pissed that this book won the prize because it is a reprint of three different books known as The "Watson" Trilogy: "Killing Mr. Watson," "Lost Man's River," and "Bone by Bone."
These books were each written in the 1990's. The trilogy was cobbled together into one volume with 400 pages cut out of it and renamed. Then the publisher paid the thousand dollar entry fee for the NBA's and got the book in the running for the prize.
Matthiessen is charming! He sounds like a genteel Southerner, even though he is from New York! Watch him get interviewed by Charlie Rose:
Charlie: "You were a CIA agent who used "The Paris Review" as cover."
Pete: "I INVENTED "The Paris Review" as cover."
Charlie: "Exactly." (laughing)
Pete: "Yeah. I did. But in very, very short order I became much more interested in "The Paris Review" than I was in my paid job, so to speak. You know Charlie, I've been very lucky in my life. I've had many very great adventures. This is the only adventure I regret: was the CIA. But it did do one thing for me. I quit, while on the job over there, very, very early on, when I was still a young kid, I was only 24, 25."
Charlie: "So you were two years in the CIA."
Pete: "Yeah, I was two years and then I realized my politics -- I'd never had any politics before -- I was a greenhorn. And my politics, when I got them, were way left of them, and I told my...uh..."
Charlie: "Handler?"
Pete: "Yeah, my handler, or whatever...uh...you know, you guys really can't trust me anymore. I'm not on your side. Things were happening back here...a lot of bad stuff...blacklists...and all the witch hunts..." (gesturing to signify that there was more)
Charlie: (Stern, not buying it) "Alright, so what would you do for them in Paris?"
Pete: "Well, I think...uh...we'll have to just go on with the rest of the show. It wasn't very much. Paltry, really. What it really was doing...you know what I was doing...spending my day doing? Deceiving people. That's all it is."
Charlie: "Deceiving people as to?"
Pete: "Deceiving people as to who you are, what's your identity, what you're up to, what you want to know them about. All that kind of stuff. I really disliked it."
Charlie: "Were you looking for people you could convert?"
Pete: "No."
Charlie: "Were you looking to expose people?"
Pete: "No, no, no. No, I was getting information on people. I didn't even know what I was doing because they never tell you what the heck you're doing and what they're using it for. But I made a very good contact, and they were very excited about it, and it was at that point that it came to kind of a head. They wanted me to go in deeper and make myself kind of a dupe. A tool for the..."
AT THAT POINT THE INTERVIEW "BLIPS OUT" AND FOCUSES ONCE AGAIN ON LITERATURE.
Charlie: "Writing for you. Are you happiest with fiction or non-fiction?"
Right now, Matthiessen is probably happiest with fiction.
I'm glad he won this award. I want to read his book. He sounds like an interesting fucking guy, with interesting fucking stories.
Also, I want to see how well he describes murder.
Posted by miracle on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:45:35 -0500 -- permanent link
| THE DREAM YOU HOLD -- What a Protean Codex Should Look Like and Doby Miracle Jones |
1. INTRODUCTION
2. BOOKS AS WALLS
3. BOOKS AS DOORS
4. BOOKS AS FRIENDS
5. BOOKS AS GENITALS
6. WHAT A PROTEAN CODEX SHOULD LOOK LIKE AND DO
7. WHAT WE MIGHT GAIN
8. WHAT WE WILL LOSE, NO MATTER WHAT
WHAT A PROTEAN CODEX SHOULD LOOK LIKE AND DO
Let's say that I am walking down the street (tossing my elbows out, comparison shopping on broccoli, flossing my teeth with the viscera of a shrimp) when three burly mercenaries -- each of whom wear white cable-knit sweaters and smell like oatmeal -- beat the shit out of me, tie a trash bag around my head, and stuff me in the back of a van.
They drive me thousands of miles away to a tall building covered in black reflective glass and they drag me to a damp room deep in the building's bowels and they pull out several of my teeth, make me renounce my government, and force me to piss on the Koran.
THEN, they give me a sheet of notebook paper, wrap my shaking fingers around a stub of pencil, and say:
"You think you are so smart. If you are so smart, why don't you tell us how to make a good ebook reader that you would like to use?"
Here is what I would write as they hover over me, watching, plaiting their mustaches, having jumping contests, feeding each other meat puddings to make each other "strong":
WHAT A PROTEAN CODEX SHOULD LOOK LIKE AND DO
By Miracle Jones
She reached into her pocket and pulled out an oblong, black box the size of two folded teenager hands. The box was rectangular, sleek, and smooth, as if constructed from the smoky glass of an arcade machine. The box was hinged on one side and she held it out to me like a flyer for Fine Dentistry, searching my eyes as I frowned at her, considering whether or not to take it.
"Go on," she said. "It's new. I told you about it already. You promised you would try it."
"I don't like new things," I said.
"Then pretend we are in a museum a thousand years from now and we are sorting through ancient relics and it is very, very old."
"But equally alien," I said. "What happens if I drop it?"
"It won't break," she said. "It only looks like it is made from glass. It is actually as hard as steel."
This was a challenge. I snatched the box from her and held it, frowning. She was right. It was cold to the touch at first, but it warmed up in my hands like the handle of a coffee mug.
"How does it work?" I asked.
"It's a Protean Codex," she said. "A Prodex. There's no ONE WAY to work it. There are some standard protocols out there on the market for simple text files; but all the good publishers code books from scratch. You can code for four panels: two covers and two inside pages."
"Sounds distracting."
"A little bit," she said. "But you get used to it."
"What books does it have on it?"
"Oh, all the classics as straight text reads. I pirated all those ebooks awhile back and then I just ported them over. It's got some new stuff: the new Murakami, the new Carter. And then I'm buying all the new Prodex Dickens as they come out."
"Dickens! That sounds good! I want to look at a Dickens on this thing."
"Open it," she said.
I ran my finger along the smooth, black matte of the cover, and then I cracked the Prodex open: dubious.
As soon as I opened the Prodex, the two black screens in front of me lit up like the faces of two dissimulating lovers greeting each other after a long absence. The right side of the Prodex displayed the Google homepage. The left side looked like a library shelf, displaying hundreds of book spines of varying thicknesses and heights. There was a complete collection of Proust next to Heinlein's book about orgies with interstellar strangers.
"These are all out of order," I said.
"You can organize them however you want," she said. "The ones I haven't read are all organized according to gayness. There are programs that will organize your books according to the Library of Congress and will just leave blank spaces for the ones you haven't got yet."
"I don't see the Dickens," I said.
"Scroll down," she said.
I did as she suggested using the buttons on the side with my thumb. On the screen, I whizzed through a spinning virtual library, darting among the stacks like a hummingbird being chased by bees.
There was a break in the stacks, and then the books were sorted alphabetically.
"You can buy this program that puts virtual pets in your library," she said. "Cats, bears, butterflies. But I think they are annoying. You can also use the Prodex as a phone, by the way."
"There's no one I want to call. Stop bothering me."
I held the book up in front of my face.
"Aha!" I said. "David Copperfield!"
I touched the spine of the book and it started to glow. I touched it again.
"It doesn't have to look like a library either," she said. "You can get programs to organize your books any way you'd like. A bunch of balls floating in the void, maybe. Or people walking around at a cocktail party, each of whom represents a specific author. You click on Jane Austen and then Jane Austen lifts up her bloomers and then there are all of her books dangling from her skirts."
The copy of David Copperfield filled the screen. The cover was new to me: it was a vivid color picture of a leering albino clasping his clammy hands together and hovering over a sleeping, dishelved writer. As I watched, the picture moved, and the sleeping man woke up and spilled his bottle of ink. The orange-haired albino retreated into the shadows.
I touched the book again and it opened.
"Ah, so you found it," she said.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Look at the front."
I looked at the front of the Prodex. The front cover of "David Copperfield" filled the previously blank screen. The animation was still going, and the words "David Copperfield" and "Charles Dickens" pulsed in gold.
"You can change it if you want so that nobody knows what you are reading," she said.
"I am proud to be reading Charles Dickens," I said.
"You can also surf the internet while you read on this thing, obviously," she said. "That means you can also watch movies and listen to music and shit. It's got two USB ports..."
"Enough: I'm trying to read!" I said. The text crawled up and down. I noticed an icon at the bottom of the page of a smiling man in a tophat with a paintbrush and a huge bowtie.
"What happens if I click on the painter lad?"
"Try it," she said.
I touched him. The right side of the book stopped showing the Google homepage, and turned into a picture of a pallid, sickly looking child being inspected by a spry old woman wearing spectacles and dressed all in feathers.
"A BOY!" the woman said, pushing up her glasses and frowning. "No! NO! NO!"
"It's got speakers," I said.
"If you are looking at the pictures, they track where you are in the text and automatically load themselves."
I touched the picture and it froze. There was another icon at the bottom that showed two tin cans linked together. I touched it, and the internet came back.
A web page loaded. It was a "David Copperfield" concordance with links to critical commentary, histories of Victorian England, links to the original illustrations for the original edition, and useless idiots blathering on about how important the book was, or what they thought the book meant.
"Who are all these useless idiots with their little icons and goddamned opinions?"
"English professors," she said, rolling her eyes. "They all have Prodex accounts nowadays."
"Jesus," I said, clicking back on the jolly painter.
I touched a third icon. This one was a picture of a steamer trunk. The icon brought up an empty document that mirrored the same infinite crawl as the text of the book. She tapped the side of the Prodex and teased out a stylus that was hidden in its bowels like the toothpick in a Swiss Army Knife.
"You can make notes in the margins," she said.
I drew a picture of a stick figure with a huge penis standing on top of the Empire State Building. I wrote: "RESEARCH THIS LATER!" by it.
"Why all the quaint Victorian images?" I asked.
"These icons are all Dickens-related because it is a Dickens book," she said. "Different publishers code different options. Some books have special features. Commentaries; videos; etc."
The fourth and last icon at the bottom showed a gnarled old man reading a picture book to a bunch of orphans. I touched it. A British-man began reading the book out loud in plummy, russet tones. I turned him off immediately.
"Irritating as all fuck," I said.
"You are not blind nor driving a car," she said.
"I guess," I said.
"All the books being published in Prodex form are required to have audio tracks by the "Americans with Disabilities Act." You can also read hypertext web books on this thing, because it's got the internet connection. Trust me, this thing is publisher friendly: if it's an electronic book in any form, you can call it up and the Prodex will store it for you and let you read it."
"What about in Chinese?"
"I'm sure it can handle Chinese," she said. "But you don't fucking speak Chinese."
"No," I agreed. "But what makes this thing any different than a laptop?"
"Not much," she said. "It's book-shaped. You can fit it in your pocket. If you flip it sideways, one of the screens becomes a keyboard, and you can write shit. You can't really play games on it, unless they are web games. It's just for reading and writing."
"So it's worse than a laptop."
"It's book-shaped," she said.
"It's book-shaped, but can I take it in the bath? And what happens if it gets caught in an MRI machine? Does my whole library get erased?"
She stared at me. She stared at me very hard. And then she took the Prodex from me and set it out of the way and then she came closer.
Posted by miracle on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:00:04 -0500 -- permanent link
| Google Puts Boot On Publishing's Neck and Turns to Look for Caesar's Thumbby Miracle Jones |
HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS:
As reader...
"What a relief; what a relief; what a relief. I walk the bookstacks of libraries and I see all the work, courage, pain, and strife that writers have put into their creative efforts over the ages, only to have their books end up moldering, desperate, and decaying on shelves -- unlovely and forgotten -- waiting to be mishandled by one last pilgrim before falling apart forever, lost to time and the POP of MODERN LIFE. I want to love the books that I have never heard of and the books that no one has ever loved before. I want to read the books that the universities did not decide were brilliant and that were ahead of their time -- or beyond it. I want to read any book I want, effortlessly, for free, without guilt, without reservation, drifting into dreams as my scroll bar creeps South, taking my mouse arrow to infinity..."
As a writer...
"OH FUCK. NOW WHO WILL PAY ME? WHERE WILL THE MONEY GO THAT GOOGLE MAKES FROM ALL THOSE DEAD WRITERS? DO YOU THINK THOSE WEEPING, BEATEN SUICIDAL DRUNKS AND CON-ARTISTS WANTED TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU? DID YOU ASK?
DO YOU CUT CHECKS, GOOGLE? DO YOU CUT CHECKS TO SMALL PRESSES? DO YOU READ, GOOGLE, DO YOU READ?
DO YOU?
NOW I HAVE TO COMPETE WITH EVERY WRITER WHO HAS EVER LIVED? OH FUCK, FUCK YOU GOOGLE, FUCK YOU...I AM UPLOADING A PICTURE OF ME SHITTING ON A GOOGLE T-SHIRT TO THE INTERNET...I AM TYPING "FUCK GOOGLE" INTO GOOGLE...I AM DOING AN IMAGE SEARCH...I AM LOOKING AT MYSELF SHIT ON A GOOGLE T-SHIRT, BUT IT IS NOT ENOUGH, THEY ARE DROWNING ME IN A PICKLE BARREL LIKE A PUPPY WHO WAS NOT STRONG..."
As a publisher...
"The library at Alexandria burned down. It was the monks who truly loved literature -- and who illuminated it with their lives, blood, eyesight, and tears -- who kept the fire of imagination alive in the Dark Ages.
Let every generation's Alexander march, conquer, and pillage. Each will fall. Ozymandias cannot squat: he can only teach. He teaches us to have patience; to insist on small miracles; to dream before acting."
Posted by miracle on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:33:22 -0500 -- permanent link
| Eat Rice; Buy Booksby Miracle Jones |
The head of Barnes and Noble issued an internal memo to his staff that said (approximately):
"Never, never, never, never, NEVER, NEVER, have times been so tough for publishers and booksellers. If you are hoping to get your pal a seasonal job with us because they just got fired from Cinnabon, tell him or her that they are just going to have to get on welfare."
According to the New York Times, times are so tough that publishers cannot even afford $22 cocktails at Midtown Manhattan hotels anymore, and are thinking about doing something with returned copies of books besides burning them, perhaps even using them to build huts in the East Village for migrant bookbinders who cannot afford return tickets to Paris.
Goofus and Gallant in the bookstore stacks:
GOOFUS:
Dressed in a black suit and carrying a zippered leather portfolio, Mr. Clough, 36, said he had quit his job at a small brokerage firm on Wall Street six months ago. Fresh from a job interview, he flipped through a "Green Lantern" graphic novel but didn't buy it. "There were probably five books I would have bought if I were not unemployed," he said.
GALLANT:
Ms. Belliveau, on the other hand, bought Carole Walter's "Great Cookies," just a day after purchasing Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food." An architect who was laid off recently, she has turned down invitations to travel and downgraded her gym membership. She has found another job, but Ms. Belliveau, 40, is still being careful about expenses -- except books. "I like to have a collection of the history of what you read," she said.
Lately, everybody is invoking "Gone With the Wind" as an example of a book that sold millions during the last depression, in spite of nobody having a goddamn dime.
But ninety-nine percent of modern Americans only buy books in order to give them away to other Americans who are never going to read them, saying, obliquely: "I think that you are intelligent." These gifts collect on shelves, and perhaps they will be read by children someday who mistakenly think books are important before their minds are corrected and destroyed.
People who ACTUALLY read never buy books for each other, because it is low-class and mean. People who read don't want to read the books you think they should read, and buying them a book they don't want is like buying a homeless person a "Welcome" mat, or lighting their cigarette with a twenty dollar bill when they plead -- shaking, shuddering -- for a spark.
People who actually read buy each other sandwiches and pastries for Christmas or Hanukkah. They know that calories are priceless these days. Food is a good, strong reading accessory.
Writers -- the repellent, shambling foundation of the book trade -- have to buy their own pastries and eat them alone (people are afraid of diseases) instead of paying rent (they are poor decision-makers), singing "Silent Night" at the top of their lungs between ragged, sobbing chews (emotional, awful people, these writers).
Posted by miracle on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:43:53 -0500 -- permanent link
