From the Reader comes this chilling, bizarre hypothesis on one of Chicago’s most famous killings with connections that rival the Lincoln/Kennedy coincidences.

I Am The Winner

http://www.bradley.edu/poet/emerging/index.shtml

Xmas War and Manufactured (?) Memory

My boss at the NU Writing Center gig wrote this:

http://www.beatthejester.com/docs/TheChristmasWar.doc

Aside from enjoying this story on its own merits, I find it exciting to imagine myself as a very young boy going to this evergreen tree lot with my grandfather some Xmas way back in the 1970s. I remember doing this, but the memory might very well be one of those manufactured childhood romanticisms that we (I) tend to construct as we (I) reach the nebulous place called adulthood.

Let’s just agree that it happened, okay? Good.

That being the case, it’s funny to consider the hell that one person must endure to provide other families with yuletide joy. Think of this story come December as you stroll through some lot of trees and scrutinize the merchandise, your brats in tow. Keep a look out for the agonized teen cursing the snow, the trees, the hellidays.

There has to be an easier way.

The Cherry on the Cake of a Very Strange Week

Speaking of Nobel Prize announcements, the President won the prize for peace. I am a bit stunned. I am tempted to say this is premature, though I am equally tempted to say this is deserved. I could list the reasons why, but others are already doing as much, and probably a lot better. I am sure the President’s critics are making their own lists aimed at chalking this up as an absurdity. Credence might be paid to both arguments, but I will say this: ever since Kissinger won the prize it has become, in my mind, completely irrelevant. Yeah, Henry sullied the entire thing, so, Mr. President, I wouldn’t feel too honored. Hope you dump the cash into the economy. Oh, and can I have a grant?

John Fante

A long time ago, way way back in the early 1990s, my then new friend Xtop lent me a CD of Charles Bukowski reading some of his poems and antagonizing a Redondo Beach audience. It’s a great CD that, among other things, caused me to be shocked by the sound of Buk’s voice. It wasn’t what I’d imagined. He was so gruesome a figure, so callus and tough, and his voice was so soft, or so it seemed to me at the time. (Now, very used to the sound of Bukowski’s voice, I might say that it is a perfect match for his overall look, not to mention the often overlooked beauty evident in many of his pages.)

One of the other things that CD did was introduce me, sort of, to the work of John Fante. In a weird, drunken digression, Buk started listing the books of Fante’s that he so loved. He called Fante a magic person and his “brother out of nowhere.” Not having any idea who John Fante was, but liking that his name sounded Italian, and rhymed with Dante, I decided to look into this person’s work.

I started with Wait Until Spring, Bandini, which, it turns out, was a good place to start. Not quite the achievement of Ask the Dust or The Brotherhood of the Grape, it does offer the newcomer a sense of the themes that Fante would touch on throughout his career. And it is the beginning of the Bandini saga, so it’s a good place to begin chronologically speaking.

Fante’s been on the brain as of late, due solely to his son, Dan Fante, and an interview with him that I heard last weekend on NPR. I looked up Dan and John Fante online, ‘cause, you know, that’s where all the info is, and stumbled across a rather nice piece on John Fante from Salon.com. And now I am sharing it with all of you:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2006/03/10/fante/

So there.

And Winner is (And the Winner Should Be)...

Well, as predicted by the surge in the odds (and, like last year, suggesting an inside source leaked the news early), Herta Müller won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Though risking confirmation of what the asshole former secretary said last year, I’ll admit that I have not heard of this woman. This is none too shocking; I’ve not heard of a lot of people, writers included. It helps if they’ve been translated, sure, so I might blame the lack of renderings of her books into English, though that would only further confirm what was said about all of us in the big 50.

As I stated previously here, and to anyone else who’d listen, I want Nicanor Parra to get the award before he dies. And really, he isn’t getting any younger. It occurred to me that one of the reasons he may never get the prize—though he has received many—might be that his (anti)poems are too laden with humor. The folks who dole out big, important awards tend to dismiss humor in favor of serious writings. I mean, this year’s winner of the Nobel writes (according to the sources I’ve read online) books about the stark life of Romanians under Ceauşescu. So yeah… what’s a funny poem or two compared to that? Still, the realities of Latin America's political climate—certainly Parra’s native Chile—are addressed in his work, albeit often with a dash of the funny. There’s an absurdity to life that often deserves absurd reactions.

Anyway… before I get all up my own quasi-intellectual ass, let me just end this post with a link to some words of advice from Parra to the young poets, and you know who you are:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/young-poets-2/#

Place Your Bets

Tomorrow the Nobel Prize for Literature winner will be announced. For anyone looking to make their bets, here are the latest odds.

I must say that of the names from this list, my pick would be Ernesto Cardenal (though I am unfamiliar with many of the other candidates). I would love to see Nicanor Parra get the award, but he’s not even on the goddamn list. Sad.

I’d be pleased if Ngugi wa Thiong'o nabbed it as well. Murakami? I’d be nice, but it’ll never happen. At least not this year. Besides, Murakami, as much as I love him, is too popular for the likes of the Nobel crowd, or so say many of their detractors. You never know... I mean, Toni Morrison won it and she is pretty damn popular.

If Joyce Carol Oats wins, that’d not really rile me, but I am hardly a fan. It would be on par with Doris Lessing winning two years back. I can’t understand the decision, personally. Phillip Roth is always considered a likely American candidate, but the award has long eluded him. Many like to speculate as to the reasons why, which you can find by Googling the topic, should you be so inclined. his fans havea lot to say. Pynchon wouldn’t show up at the ceremony, so they’ll likely pass him over. Adonis’s name is always tossed about by the predictors. It would be nice if Tranströmer got it. He deserves it. He’s the real goddamn deal. Or Antonio Lobo Antunes. Or Adam Zagajewski. But please, don’t let Bob Dylan snag the fucking thing. That would give his rabid fans all the more reason to continue propping up that wheezy fuck as the genius he ain’t. I mean, he has a few songs, sure, but the Nobel fucking Prize? Ugh. The mere fact that his odds are 25/1 and Cardenal’s are 100/1 sickens me.