Each month, Anna Knoebel revisits letters from prominent writers and other artists to revive the dying art of letter writing. Anna is the editor and co-publisher of Abe’s Penny, a magazine of arts and literature delivered in the form of postcards.
Like a prose index of cultural references, this postcard from David Foster Wallace to Don DeLillo makes “Wish you were here!” postcards seem like huge wastes, void as they are of information and character.
Among the many curiosities of this correspondence: “No offense intended” by the card’s image (a book cover from Sheldon Lord’s A Woman Must Love), the mention of Jonathan Franzen’s New Yorker piece on William Gaddis, the brick shithouse of a palm tree, and a request to eyeball DeLillo’s “new novel” (Cosmopolis?). So many of the sentences create space for wondering what more there is to know.
1. Adam Levin’s balloon, having a nap. 2. Ian Perez, a teacher, with Patrick Hannon, a Levin fan and fiction writer.
Hot pink is not a color my eyes catch in pleasure, though when I was covering an event at WORD about a month ago, I spied these words on a book authored by a dude named Adam Levin. He wrote this book called The Instructions and it’s really big and incredible. Also about a month ago, I started anxiously awaiting last night’s event at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO: Vol. 1 Brooklyn and McSweeney’s helped debut Levin’s short story collection, Hot Pink, with readings from Adam Wilson and Karolina Waclawiak, a live Q&A, and free beer. And there were Adam Levin balloons.
A mixtape playlist should be consistent. Well themed. But, uh, that didn’t really work out. Initially I planned on doing a strictly ‘Music for Springtime’ playlist, but I realized that would mean putting in too much cheesy Lovin’ Spoonful-ish stuff, so instead I opted for a more personal, and possibly also more chaotic and idiosyncratic road, a mixtape of some spring songs, a few songs which probably only I associate with springtime as well as tracks that in different ways, shapes, and forms have been important to me as a writer. Or just important. But, for what it’s worth, the order of tracks have been thoroughly contemplated, for weeks on end, to ensure the preservation of a logic which may only be obvious to myself. Oh, well.
April 1st: ‘New Day Rising’ by Hüsker Dü:
I wish I had been 16 in 1985 instead of just 6, as I’m sure the Hüskers would have changed my life. Unfortunately I discovered them late and therefore had to change it myself. My life, that is. This is my favourite track, perfect for almost all occasions, for instance the month of April. When I did a reading together with Hüsker’s Bob Mould in Minneapolis in June last year I wanted to tell him how much I loved the song. But I lost my nerve. Instead I just said ‘Hello.’
April 2nd: ‘Staircase’ by Radiohead:
Few, if any bands have been more important to me since the early nineties, and more or less all my books have a lot to thank them for. The original idea for the novel Buzz Aldrin, What Happened To You in All The Confusion? came from listening to ‘How To Disappear Completely’. I love the fact that twenty years after their first album, they just keep getting better, which this track (their newest) is a proof of. I had it on repeat for a week when I first got it.
April 3rd: ‘The Brothel’ by Susanne Sundfør:
It’s her VOICE, her lyrics, her instrumentation and her total commitment to concentrate on music instead of bullshit that makes her one of my favorite Norwegian artists. Read the rest of this entry »
1. This is how many people read an advice column. Also how many pretty people exist at 7:15 P.M. on Crosby Street. Send letters. 2. Dana Hammer, a writer, with Abby Kulchin, a Philosophy PhD candidate at Philosophy (who finishes Friday–send her cake) and tutor at Brooklyn Institute.
Each time I visit Housing Works its vibe changes to match the event, and A Wild Night with Sugar and The Rumpus was the first time the bookstore looked anything like a club. My Dishmate Ryan and I waited in line outside, repeated our last names to a woman holding a pen and clipboard, got tickets, walked into the dimly lit space. Past the beer line, which was full of former members of the outside line, was a stage with drums and guitars waiting for their musicians, and lights illuminating a giant Rumpus banner, which marked the head of the store like the top of its webpage. The tagline under the logo read “Waste time better.” Rumpy, the magazine’s mascot, was on the banner, stalwart, catching his ass in a net. All of this was to celebrate the release of Wild, a memoir by Cheryl Strayed, more intimately known as The Rumpus’s Sugar, the Ann Landers of all the sad young literary boys and girls. Hosted by writer and Fitzgerald biographer Rachel Syme, the evening was at turns funny, tender, and maudlin– maybe the last because I’d been in the beer line.
I am SO lucky to have such an important network of deep and loyal fans and very good friends, and these people are like family, and in the face of the recent nasty media coverage (especially the Irish media, shame onya), I was instantly surrounded by a lot of concern about my well being, not to mention my own. Lots of fans and internet friends sent me thoughts and flowers and one person sent me Nair (‘cause of my hairy arms on Gawker, LOL) and someone else, a book. And the book is called Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia. And it’s by Blake Butler. Well, Blake Butler, Nothing Compares to You!
The clever yam-banger who sent this to me did so because I’ve had trouble sleeping this last year. I was on MEDICATION and then there was my Irish Independent man advert and all the prudish people honking because I admitted liking the difficult brown in the classifieds. Well excuse me for talking about a#&^ sex and cave men! I thought we were in the year two-thousand-twelve but I guess we’re still in the ice age, you frigid bunch of cacks! Read the rest of this entry »
1. Anthony Miller showing us why fictional history is more fun than the other kind. He does a surprisingly good impression of Chris Farley, Owen Wilson, and Yoda. 2. Kyra Simone describing a surreal trip on the Paris metro. I’d take shape-shifting thieves over the track work in New York.
Sunday’s Black ClockIssue 15 launch at McNally Jackson was packed with people and plastic fold-out chairs despite two lit-event anomalies: it was a Sunday afternoon and there was no booze. The second surprise was explained by the first, and the amount of people by the quality of the magazine, which has published scruffy old literary voices with fresh and squeaky new ones since its debut eight years ago. The theme of Issue 15 was alternative histories of cinema. I stood, packed between people, but happy, sober as Cathedral-era Raymond Carver.
1. The crowd at Tishman Auditorium. 2. Mr. Elusive, AKA Don DeLillo, with Larry Dark.
Last night in the Tishman Auditorium at The New School, Robert Polito, Director of the Graduate Writing Program, said The Story Prize has “accomplished something incredible … a sophisticated evaluation of the form.” Now in its eighth year, The Story Prize selects three finalists, hosts a reading and conversation, and, at the end of the night, awards one book $20,000 in cold hard cash, and $5,000 to each of the two other books. If that sounds pretty sweet it’s because it is. Dish editor Julia Jackson and I made our way to Tishman to see and hear Don Delillo (The Angel Esmerelda), Steven Millhauser (We Others), and Edith Perlman (Binocular Vision, winner of the 2011 Wallant Award and PEN/Malamud Award) read from their 2011 collections. Later, we went to the reception and ate spicy meatballs, tried to photograph Don DeLillo, and talked about Livejournal communities. Yes, I repeat: Livejournal communities.
1. All three hostesses. Rachel Fershleiser, literary outreach at Tumblr; Maris Kreizman, founder of Slaughterhouse 90210; Amanda Bullock, events director at Housing Works. 2. Miles Klee, representin’ NJ to the fullest, hurling jellyfish. Behind him: Miami Vice.
I’ve attended events at Housing Works before, but last night’s Slaughterhouse 90210 Third Year Anniversary Party pulsed with the excitement and trepidation that only an IRL meeting of online friends can have. Pigeon-chested dudes, barely filling out their blazers, and women with bangs and thick-framed glasses held wine provided by Tumblr, whispered to each other: “Is that Maris Kreizman? Do I say hi? Will she remember that she retweeted me?” Maris, founder of the blog Slaughterhouse 90210, emceed the third birthday of her hilarious contribution to our dashboards, which matches sitcom screenshots with contemporary and classic literary quotes.
1. John Wray interviews Heidi Julavits. Julavits won’t play poker with him anymore, 1) because he lives in Brooklyn, 2) because she’s sick of all the Bob Dylan worship going on. 2. Columbia MFA student Marlon Frisby gets his book signed. His idea for another constraint for Julavits’ next book: sports. (Julavits played rugby in college, so she’s game).
Have you seen the book trailer for Heidi Julavits’ new novel, The Vanishers? It makes me want to take a shower, in a good way.
Which is strange, because as John Wray put it in his interview with Julavits, a founding editor of The Believer, at The Center for Fiction last night, there’s no “actual sex” in her latest novel. (Julavits’ mother-in-law wrote her the “weirdest e-mail,” which said the novel was “the most sexless thing she’s ever read” – which made Julavits feel sort of like a prude.) That’s not to say there isn’t sexual tension in The Vanishers; in fact, every character seems sexualized. Julavits said she’s interested in un-acted upon sexual tension, the way this appears in the confusing way women interact with each other (“Do I want to fuck her or be her?”) – female characters who have a sexual desire for someone else’s being.
1. Dena Rash Guzman, the event’s co- host, and I got there around the same time. 2. Holly Hinkle, editor of Unshod Quills, on the stairs with artist Jason W. Herzog. 3. While waiting for a drink, my investigative waiting uncovers The Jack London’s copy of The Call of the Wild.
On Monday night at the Jack London Bar, Dena Rash Guzman and Monica Storss co-hosted the Portland screening of poetry films. This was part of a competition for second and third place, as part of The Shanghai Tunnels Project presented by HAL Publishing and Unshod Quills. Entries included “Dust” by Liu Xiaobo (2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), and “Your Limbs Will Be Torn Off in a Farm Accident” by Portland’s Zachary Schomburg, among others.
Each month, Anna Knoebel revisits letters from prominent writers and other artists to revive the dying art of letter writing. Anna is the editor and co-publisher of Abe’s Penny, a magazine of arts and literature delivered in the form of postcards.
