Did Doris Lessing influence David Foster Wallace? The question occurred to me as I read Lessing’s Shikasta, the first in her five-volume Canopus in Argos series of “space fiction” novels.
Author: David Barker
Story: Urine Love
When Chuck fell in love with Camilla, it struck him at a visceral level. Maybe visceral is the wrong word. It suggests that Chuck felt his love in the gut whereas, when he examined his feelings, he discovered that he felt his love most keenly in the nose. Or (since Camilla would never allow Chuck to speak so crassly): Chuck’s feelings for Camilla stirred up olfactory associations.
Smashwords, Mark Coker and the Gears of Big Publishing
Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, posted an op-ed today in the Huffington Post, calling on authors to throw themselves on the gears of the machine. This is a reference to Mario Savio’s 1964 speech in which he called on students at UCLA to resist the administration’s attempts to curtail free speech.
If Copyright Lawyers wrote the Rules for Baseball
The Anthropocene Age: The Drowned World & J.G. Ballard
According to the BBC news online, we now live in the Anthropocene period, which is a fancy way of saying humans have so altered the planet’s surface that we’ve left traces of ourselves in its permanent geological record.
Serrated Poem
Tongue the jagged edge.Take a sliver from unbuffed wood,a splinter in the eye. Blister the ragged thumbthrough a frayed asbestos oven mitt,a searing Pyrex dish. Barter with the man,a local artisan of handicraftsand rustic klatsch. Pause at the eulogy,the rough-hewn words of a nervousnephew’s ramblings. Hoe a chip-edged furrowthat follows a taut stringed template,a back…
Dream Sequence #2 – The Litigation Lawyer
Unlike my Dream Sequence #1 (The Lost Bowling Alley of Atlantis), this is someone else’s dream, which I am mining for fun and profit. Yesterday, I was walking down St. George Street, on my way to pick up a book I had ordered, when a man dashed from a doorway and joined me.
Story: The Sidewalks of Kilimanjaro
Harry presses his back to the post of the swing set and watches a light plane pass overhead. The plane trails a banner ad for something. Harry can’t say what. A chill wind makes his eyes tear and that blurs his vision. Maybe it’s an ad for cough syrup, or condoms. Most likely an ad for a wireless service provider.
Netsuke, by Rikki Ducornet
Netsuke, by Rikki Ducornet – Coffee House Press. The psychoanalyst is not well. He could benefit from some of his own therapy, but lacks the insight to seek help. Perhaps we might best describe his difficulty thus: he confuses desire and obsession; what he takes for passionate feeling is something more mechanical and needless, like the hunger of a glutton.
The most unlikely movie scene ever
The most unlikely movie scene ever in the history of Hollywood (at least in my humble opinion) has to be the closing scene of Stand By Me, the Rob Reiner film based on a short story by Stephen King.
Poem: Smoking Lounge
We first meet in the smoking lounge. Ward 3C. Psychiatric. The only place in the hospital where you’ll find a smoking lounge.
How They Were Found by Matt Bell
If I were a seasoned and astute investor, maybe I’d regale you with tales of how, way back in 1977, I heard about a kid named Steve Jobs who was looking for a few private backers, how I cut a cheque for a couple thousand dollars, how the kid took his company public in 1980, and the rest – as they say—is money.
Favourite Book Blurbs from Japan
I shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t laugh in public at someone else’s writing. Especially when I’m publishing some of my own work in a couple weeks. It’s courting disaster.
Happy Piss Christ Easter
The Piss Christ scandal reminds me of the chocolate Jesus scandal, only this scandal has gone one better … or two … or three. In the case of the chocolate Jesus, the scandal was the work itself.
All My Cover Designers Are Superheroes
All My Friends Are Superheroes is a slender sentimental quasi-allegorical tale by Andrew Kaufman. However, the real superhero of this book is Ian McInnis, whose cheeky whimsical cover has probably done more to sell this book than all the other marketing efforts combined.