the 941

“The bomb will not start a chain-reaction in the water converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labeled me, exploding these bombs to satisfy my personal whim.”– William H.P. Blandy, a U.S. Navy Admiral who oversaw the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Island.

“Woe to you my Princess. When I come, I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are froward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.”

– Sigmund Freud

“Four trillion dollars for baked beans? I didn’t know they had Whole Foods in Zimbabwe!”

–Lewis Black

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Chuck Klosterman is a very popular writer who, in this reader’s opinion, is not crappy (e.g. Dan Brown) or gimmicky (Chuck Palahniuk) or sickeningly obnoxious (Jonathan Safran Foer). That makes him unique in the world of contemporary letters.

Mostly, he’s famous for turning pop culture inside out in order to show his readers how truly bizarre it is. You wouldn’t expect this to transfer well into a novel. But at the essence of what he does, even in books like Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Chuck Klosterman IV, is a doggedly pursued curiousness about human feelings and relationships. People like him because he articulates major things that they felt but didn’t understand, that they would have thought inarticulable. And he does so in a remarkably conversational way. His writing is smart, but it’s not trying to prove it.

In this way, his first novel delivers. Since I got my hands on an advance copy of Downtown Owl last night, I’ve been jumping into various chapters of the novel and reading on until the next. It’s relentlessly interesting, even when read this way.

Using a “What she said:/What she meant:” device, he exposes the logical framework under a flirtatious conversation. In another chapter, when a man begins to realize he’s been ruined by a massive con, he gets a feeling in his stomach like “when you reach your hand back to get your wallet and suddenly realize it’s not there. “

Chuck Klosterman fans know the feeling you get when reading his writing, like when you have a psychoanalytic breakthrough. And in this book, the payoff is near-constant. That may cause us to forgive him any flaws as a novelist.

But hey, not everyone who reads his books will take a critical eye to them. Many readers of this novel may very well be non-readers. That’s because Chuck Klosterman is the perfect crossover writer. He’s popular without being any of the nasty things listed above, but he’s also well-liked among elitist literati folks, despite not being confusing, cloying or ironic.

Downtown Owl comes out Sept. 16. If you like Chuck Klosterman, it won’t disappoint. If you’ve never heard of him, you might want to check it out. He’s very accessible.

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According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, will be published September of next year. Nabokov had asked that the book be burned after his death. The decision was left in the hands of his son Dmitri.

Slate’s Ron Rosenbaum, who once called for the book to be published, now regrets his decision. He refers to “a few troubling paragraphs” in the manuscript he read. Hmm.

Personally, I don’t think it should have been published. But haven’t made up my mind on whether I’ll read it. Rosebaum suggested a good compromise: stow the manuscript in a restricted archive rather than publish it as a novel.

What do you think?

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For the Starbucks haters…

Well, this is a new strategy when it comes to reprimanding “bat shit crazy” celebs.

Slate women discuss American Girl dolls.

An interview with David Sedaris for your Sunday.

Coming in August, Ebony Mag presents “the 25 coolest brothers of all time.” (Three guesses as to who’s their cover boy.)

Nursing a hangover? Finishing off a corndog? Firing off the last of the firecrackers? Round out your weekend by helping the Two Coreys pound the stink out of each other, a la Mortal Kombat.

What will be the first to go for you, a pricier chicken breast or a expensive hi-tech toy?

Politico’s take on those switching teams.

And to finish off your long weekend, “How to shut down an internet argument,” courtesy of Gawker.com. Quoting verbatim, “Just post this video, each and every time, when things appear to be getting out of hand in a comments thread or whatever. Makes everyone involved feel stupid.”

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It’s arguable that Marvel Comics’ Ultimates series — a modern re-tool of the classic Avengers team — is the biggest breadwinner the company has seen in years. Not the actual comic books, really, since we know that print comics still don’t enjoy mainstream success. These days, the money is all at the movies.

First came a series of successful animated DVDs. Then, when the company took over production of their officially licensed movies with Iron Man and Hulk (2008), it announced that most of the next 5 years of big-screen comic features will be devoted to the slate of characters on the Ultimates team, with another Iron Man movie, a Captain America feature and a blow-out movie featuring the entire Avengers line-up. And, considering the quality of the first few Ultimates comics series — and the box-office success of Iron Man and the Hulk — it was a good move. Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury? That’s how he was drawn in the Ultimates years before these movies were mentioned.

But then why would you kill the goose that laid the golden egg? I’m not saying that Marvel is canceling the Ultimates comic. On the contrary, I wish they would. (more…)

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The rain. When you’re outside it’s sexy — it mats the hair, shines the skin and exposes the nipples. When you’re indoors, it patters your brain into a stupor. It’s been a still, suffocated day in our office. Story leads arose and died one after another. We turn to the Internet, a weatherless vortex, to bring you…

- The music blog of local karaoke guru Steve Pettit. We wish the formatting was better, but this guy knows music better than anyone we know.

- An upcoming art show hosted by Orange Press, the publishers of our favorite DIY punk-rock zine in Sarasota. OK it’s the only one, but we like.

- Loving More, a nonprofit dedicated to relationships that embrace polyamory, a lifestyle practiced by a surprising number of Sarasotans. Stay tuned for a CL story in the near future.

- Departing from the local scene now, here’s some of the finest in 21st-century visual journalism.

- Some less useful but also very pretty pictures.

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+ I don’t believe I’m starting this off with a link to Us Weekly, but I can’t really pretend I’m not sad about Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The man co-wrote three pretty amazing Wes Anderson films: Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. But forget the man’s art, or the state of his life: On Fox News yesterday evening, all the talk was about whether or not Wilson’s depression would hurt his box-office draw. Because that’s what matters. [usmagazine]
+ Here’s the trailer for Anderson’s upcoming no-doubt-classic, The Darjeeling Limited, with Wilson in a feature role. [apple]
+ In more cultural news, this time related to books (i.e. news no one gives a shit about), New Republic literary critic James Wood makes the jump to The New Yorker. Even though I’ve got my gripes with what I view as Wood’s rather narrow, reactionary taste, you can’t knock the guy’s seriousness. (And let’s hope he ruffles Updike’s feathers. Dude needs it.) [boston via aldaily]
+ Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Poverty numbers in Bradenton don’t look good. [bradenton]
+ Buchanan feels the pinch. [heraldtribune]
+ And he should. [nytimes]
+ But at the White House, they’ve got more important business to attend to. [nytimes]

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So how was your day, kids?

 

+Start of a new school year for area youngsters: Added mandatory hours of PE, college-style majors for high schoolers, post-winter break exams. Best years of your life, we promise. [Herald-Tribune]

+”‘This was our Super Bowl,’ Disney Channel Worldwide Entertainment president Gary Marsh told Variety.” [Mercury News]

+Can anthropology, biochemistry and the length of your ring finger help predict your online dating success? (Not as perverted as it sounds.) [Salon.com]

+Curved claws have I,/But I have been sold like a fattened sheep. Gitmo poetry in analysis. [Slate]

+The Cruise curse? [AP movie wire]

+Them Serbs do the darnedest things: “‘There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,’ zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.” [cnn/Reuters]

+Beware the Boeing 737. [Forbes.com]

+Is he or isn’t he?  If Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell et al. follow through with phase two of the Tribune buyout tomorrow, it could mean more massive debt for the paper. But those plans could just as easily fizzle, some say. (Of course, you know who your friends are when the Trib hits the skids.) [NY Times]

+We can’t figure out what’s more awesome: 1) that Foxy Brown finally got called out for the “idiot” she is (and by a drugstore employee!), or 2) that the number of comments earned by Gawker’s post on the subject “passed the 2,500 mark” this morning. [Gawker]

+Giddyap! [sptimes]

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This story will appear in tomorrow’s CL.

Let’s get Fun-damental!
Of the books below, all of which hit shelves recently, there’s something for everyone: beach thrillers to biographies, fluffy fiction to gripping accounts of fascism. Get your spectacles cleaned and your picnic baskets packed — it’s time to turn some pages.

NON-FICTION
Class Acts
Rachel Sherman (California)
The first outing of a young Yale sociology professor, Class Acts follows employees at two of the nation’s swankiest hotels as they puff pillows, fold linens, wheel in the room service and pet-sit. The whole thing is organized like an ethnography, but reads like any piece of quality narrative journalism: great quotes, great characters, oddball encounters galore.

Spymistress
William Stevenson (Arcade)
As this biography reveals, during World War II, the real-life British socialite Vera Atkins became one of the world’s great spies — and the raven-haired vixen whom James Bond creator Ian Fleming once respectfully called “the boss.”

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life
John Sellars (Simon & Schuster)
Part music guide, part fan memoir, this history of the indie scene — ’80s, ’90s and ’00s — is unpretentious enough to engage even those who don’t know their Spoon from their Sonic Youth. Hip and heartfelt.

Peeling the Onion
Günter Grass (Harcourt)
Turns out Grass served the Nazis as an SS fighter once, something the Nobel winner regretted but, for whatever reason, always downplayed in his lit career. A surprising read for those who grew up on his classic indictments of postwar German hypocrisy, but worthwhile even for those who didn’t.

Embark upon a jump for fictional pursuits…

(more…)

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I cruised 41 up into the mysterious waters of Bradenton last Friday, hoping to check out — for the first time: sorry, B-towners! — the city’s Village of the Arts. The neighborhood is the Suncoast’s largest artists’ colony, with 40-plus galleries, artsy shops and more. While I came away a bit disillusioned by the quality of the visual art to be found there — don’t get me wrong, I like mountain streams and flowy female figures as much as the next guy, i.e. not at all — I was shocked to find the best bookstore I’ve ever entered anywhere near here. The Village Bookshop is the real deal: The stacks are thick with new and used volumes ranging from the pop to the obscure; the poetry section is just short of exhaustive; even the creaking floorboards underneath add to the effect. And did I mention shop owner and sharp-witted conversation provider Doug Knowlton, himself a poet (and pictured above, to the right)? Now, I can already imagine the impassioned defenses of Sarasota News & Books addicts and those who enjoy the clusterchuck that is The Main Bookshop.

(more…)

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