Saturday, January 17, 2009

Robert Frost, Out Loud


The sound is the gold in the ore.
- Robert Frost

Robert Frost Out Loud is a site dedicated to audio recordings of Frost's poetry, many read by Frost himself.

Here's a poem of his, "Waiting":

Afield at Dusk

What things for dream there are when spectre-like,
Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled,
I enter alone upon the stubble field,
From which the laborers’ voices late have died,
And in the antiphony of afterglow
And rising full moon, sit me down
Upon the full moon’s side of the first haycock
And lose myself amid so many alike.

I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour,
Preventing shadow until the moon prevail;
I dream upon the night-hawks peopling heaven,
Each circling each with vague unearthly cry,
Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar;
And on the bat’s mute antics, who would seem
Dimly to have made out my secret place,
Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
And seek it endlessly with purblind haste;
On the last swallow’s sweep; and on the rasp
In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back,
That, silenced by my advent, finds once more,
After an interval, his instrument,
And tries once—twice—and thrice if I be there;
And on the worn book of old-golden song
I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold
And freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
But on the memory of one absent most,
For whom these lines when they shall greet her eye.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Friday's Poem

Vita Sackville-West reads "The Land":

Jon's Writing in NW Travel Magazine


Go to your local newsstand and find the January/February issue of Northwest Travel Magazine. I wrote a story about visiting Olympia with kids. There's actually quite a bit to do!

Reading List: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict


For those who want to know the story behind the news stories coming out of the Gaza Strip, The New York Times offers a small impressive reading list.

Gary Shteyngart's Guide to Being a Novelist


The author of the wondrous Absurdistan, writes for Asylum about how to be a good novelist.

He offers some pretty solid tips...sort of...

Finding Inspiration
"I think all good books come from heartbreak. Focus on the worst thing that's happened to you -- usually it's interpersonal. Could be your parents drank themselves to death; an ostrich killed your baby brother. Or focus on the worst, horrible break-up. Go off from that. Feel something. It's very hard to feel something these days because we're living such electronic lives; everything's just some weird electronic echo. Try to access what human beings used to have -- emotions. Go from there."

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Jon's CD Review on Three Imaginary Girls


I recently reviewed Conrad Ford's latest album, Secret Army. What I didn't realize when I was writing it was that the lead singer for Conrad Ford, Andy McAllister, was the childhood friend of my good friend, Michael J. Fox (not the "Family Ties" guy, the other one. The one that is very good at playing the vibraphone and enjoys, as I do, bacon).

Here's Conrad Ford singing "Radio Station" live at the Crocodile Cafe:

Jon's Writing in Distinctly Northwest Magazine


I had the pleasure recently of researching, interviewing, and writing about the fine woodworkers in the great state of Oregon for Distinctly Northwest Magazine.

Pictured above: A piece done by Kai Fuhrmann.

Teenage Dirtbag - Arthur Rimbaud


The great Edmund White discusses the life and times of French poet, and teenage dirtbag, Arthur Rimbaud, for The Guardian.

Here's Arthur Rimbaud's poem "The Seekers of Lice":

When the boy's head, full of raw torment,
Longs for hazy dreams to swarm in white,
Two charming older sisters come to his bed
With slender fingers and silvery nails.

They sit him at a casement window, thrown
Open on a mass of flowers basking in blue air,
And run the fine, intimidating witchcraft
Of their fingers through his dew-dank hair.

He listens to their diffident, sing-song breath,
Smelling of elongated honey off the rose,
Broken now and then by a hiss: saliva sucked
Back from the lip, or a longing to be kissed.

He hears their dark eyelashes start in the sweet-
Smelling silence and, through his grey listlessness,
The crackle of small lice dying, beneath
The imperious nails of their soft, electric fingers.

The wine of Torpor wells up in him then
— Near on trance, a harmonica-sigh —
And in their slow caress he feels
The endless ebb and flow of a desire to cry.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Jon's CD Review on Three Imaginary Girls


I recently reviewed William F. Gibbs' great new album, My Fellow Sophisticates.

Here's Gibbs singing "Here Comes Your Steamboat Brother! Here Comes Your Freightline Sister!":

All the Presidents' Literature


Jonathan Raban, for the Wall Street Journal, discusses the best presidential writers and what Barack Obama's memoirs say about how he'll lead.

From the story...

It's been so long since a talented writer last occupied the White House; no wonder, then, that American writers have been among the most prominent of all the demographic groups claiming a piece of Barack Obama for themselves. In the last year, Obama's 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father" (though not his later, more conventional campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope") has been discovered by the literary profession as if it were the Comstock Lode: He wrote it himself! Every sentence has its own graceful cadence! He could as easily be a novelist as a politician!

It's an uncommon coincidence. The solitary existence of the writer, recasting the world alone in a room, generally unfits him for the intensely sociable, collegial life of practical politics, just as most successful politicians would as soon turn into Trappist monks as face the daily silence and seclusion of the writer's study. There are of course exceptions: Benjamin Disraeli entered British politics as a fashionable novelist, and went on to twice become prime minister; the playwright Vaclav Havel became president of Czechoslovakia, then of the Czech Republic. But there's no particular correlation between literary ability and high political office: think of a Melville administration, or a novel by George Washington.

Yet writing has sometimes been as important an accomplishment for an American president as his skill as a general or diplomat, as when Jefferson, Madison and John Adams wrote the United States into being by lamplight, and Lincoln scribbled disconnected sentences on scraps of paper that he tucked for safe-keeping inside his hat.




Also, NPR is touting Obama's force in book publishing. That is, what Barack Obama reads suddenly becomes a bestseller.



Also, Obama and Spider-Man are teaming up. You heard right - Spider-Man.

The Worlds of Dante Alighieri


The Inferno. Purgatorio. Paradiso. Welcome to Danteworlds.

Created by the University of Texas, it's an integrated multimedia journey--combining artistic images, textual commentary, and audio recordings--through the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) presented in Dante's Divine Comedy.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

IN THE TRUNK OF TINA’S HATCHBACK


Her water broke over the water. Rebecca didn’t realize that she was so close to giving birth. That’s why she was on a ferry boat with Tina, her best friend, going to Vashon Island to visit Tina’s aunt who lived on a beach and was recently widowed. Rebecca was bringing a tuna casserole for the festivities. It sat in the trunk of Tina’s hatchback when the baby was born.

The father had broken up with Rebecca during her third month of pregnancy. She was just starting to show, was looking through Babies R’ Us catalogs and reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting religiously when Dallas, her boyfriend, over plates of fruity hotcakes at Denny’s, told her he wasn’t ready.

“Well, I’m not either,” Rebecca said as she drank some orange juice.

“No, Dallas said, wiping some excess maple syrup from his lips. “I can’t.” Then Dallas paid the bill, apologized, and left Rebecca there in the booth with a broken heart and a full belly.

Tina ran up the stairs of the ferry and told a ferry employee who had a broom in his hand that her friend was giving birth in a Ford Escort. After some quick discussion and deliberation, Vance, a ferry employee who helped give birth to a boy named Trevor eight years previous, ran down to help Rebecca, right after he finished restocking the toilet paper in the men’s head.

With a small audience, some yells, grunts, howls, and blood, Stephanie Hyak (so named for the ferry boat she was on) Collins was born. She was eight pounds, five ounces and was 20 ½ inches long (this, according to Vance’s measurements). “I’m just eyeballing it,” he said. “I don’t know for sure if it’s five ounces or six.”

Rebecca cried and Tina did, too. “This is so wonderful!” Tina exclaimed patting Vance on the shoulder. “A miracle! This is a story for the ages! This is…remarkable!”

Vance, sweating a little from the stress and strenuousness of baby delivery, wiped his head with the back of his regulation ferry uniform and looked up at Tina whose eyes were glistening with joy, pure elation that her best friend just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. “Now,” Vance said, “who are you again?”

”I’m Tina,” she said, holding Rebecca’s trembling hand and looking into the baby’s fresh eyes. “I’m the baby’s ferry godmother.”

The Current State of Reading


Can this be? It's on the rise?! Indeed. For the first time since 1982, reading has increased.

From the story...

For the first time since the NEA began surveying American reading habits in 1982 -- and less than five years after it issued its famously gloomy "Reading at Risk" report -- the percentage of American adults who report reading "novels, short stories, poems or plays" has risen instead of declining: from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent in 2008.

The Most Expensive Fictional Homes


Forbes has a slideshow of the most expensive homes in fiction including Batman's Wayne Manor and Richie Rich's humble abode.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Literary Quiz


Do you have the write stuff? Take this difficult quiz, care of The Telegraph, to find out.

Some sample questions...

13 In which language did Franz Kafka write?

14 Who, in the 1950s, wrote the highly influential food books French Country Cooking and Italian Food?

15 What is the main title of the Bill Bryson book that is subtitled Travels in Europe?

16 What was Thomas Hardy's first profession?

Diaries of Swashbuckling Hero Unearthed


How cool is this? A 300-year-old journal of a British explorer who saved the real-life Robinson Crusoe and defeated pirates of the Caribbean has been discovered.

45 Vintage "Space Age" Illustrations


Enjoy the gallery, care of Well Medicated.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Quote of the Week


The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
- Anais Nin

Friday, January 09, 2009

What Should I Write? VOTE NOW!


I've had all sorts of ideas about books I should write lately but the ideas always get in the way of actually doing them. "Ooh! I should write about THAT!" I think to myself and then say, "But what about that?!" Help me with this dilemma, will you?

Vote for your favorite idea in the comments section and I'll write it this year.



1) The Fake American History Book

I've always thought it'd be fun to write a U.S. history textbook that's almost true. That is to say, write it like a normal history book but throw in a bunch of ridiculous lies that almost sound like they could be true but aren't. Then, push it further.



2) House of Ashes


A novel revolving around a missing child and a crumbling marriage.

3) Frontier Psychiatrist



A novel based on the song above.



4) Boston Corbett

A biography or novel or full-length play based on this man - the man who killed the man who killed Abraham Lincoln.

There you have it. Some serious books. Some not-so-serious books. What say you, my friends?

VOTE NOW!

Friday's Poem

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "To Nature":