David Foster Wallace, the man beneath the bandanna…
17 Oct
David Foster Wallace, the man beneath the bandanna…
Chronicling the life of the late author David Foster Wallace, biopic The End of the Tour follows the writer and Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky as they take a road trip shortly after the release of Infinite Jest in 1996. Starring Jason Segel as Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as Lipsky, director James Ponsoldt successfully portrays the relationship between two writers as we simultaneously learn about the inner workings of Wallace’s mind.
Wallace suffered from serious mental illness, anxiety, and depression for much of his life. His writing was a mix of styles – heavily used made-up jargon, footnotes, and endnotes, which he has said was the only way he could reflect the way he perceived reality. His work was often challenging and complicated for readers, but he believed a writer’s job was to remind readers of just how smart they are. Wallace also often used irony and satire in his writings and felt that these two elements, while offering entertainment, were going to vex a generation of writers. His stories often dealt with post-modernism and our ever-growing consumer appetites.
Given his personal outlook on things such as fame and stardom, it is unlikely that Wallace would have found solace in a film about him and his life. The author would likely have seen it as an ill-fated attempt to cash in on a ‘literary stardom’ that he didn’t see himself having.
The film shows several sides of Wallace’s mental illness, and while this wasn’t portrayed poorly, his family and friends feel David should be known for more than this. They also feel that Wallace would have taken issue with an interview from 18 years ago being repurposed as a major motion picture. His consent was explicitly for a Rolling Stone interview, not a major film production or any other medium. As The End of the Tour is based on Lipsky’s book, there has been little that the Wallace estate has been able to do about the film.
That said, Segel’s performance as Wallace has been highly praised, and while no one can say for sure that it was accurate, it was certainly an ambitious and in-depth portrayal. It has also been said that Eisenberg as Lipsky nailed the representation of an entire profession. Little quirks like checking to see if the red light on his recorder was on accurately mimicked the mannerisms of a journalist. Additionally, the intimacy between Segel and Eisenberg, as Wallace and Lipsky, is memorable and engaging.
The End of the Tour was first released at the Sundance Film Festival in January of this year when A24 Films and DirecTV picked up distribution rights to the film. It was then set for a theatrical release in July and gained universal acclaim. Although those close to him may not have found this film the most accurate portrayal of his life as a whole, it still deserves recognition for its stunning performances and strong attempt to peer into the life of a legendary author.
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Writer Beth Michelle is a Chicago-based blogger with a nasty film addiction. Her primary interests include pulp cinema, fashion photography and vintage Japanese film cameras.
On a clear night I can see Uranus…
15 Oct
On a clear night I can see Uranus…
Having reached opposition this month, Uranus is closer, larger, and brighter than any other time this year. Even though the planet is four times the diameter of Earth, it is so distant – 1.76 billion miles away – that it appears as a small featureless disk even in large telescopes. Almost all our detailed knowledge of the planet comes from the flyby of the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986. (October 11, 2015, 12 midnight EDT).
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Alan Annand is a Canadian astrologer, a graduate of the American College of Vedic Astrology and the British Faculty of Astrological Studies. He’s written two books on Vedic astrology: Stellar Astrology, a collection of astrological techniques, in-depth celebrity profiles, and analysis of mundane events, and Parivartana Yoga, a reference text for one of the most common yet powerful planetary combinations in Jyotish.
He’s also a writer of crime fiction, including his NEW AGE NOIR series (Scorpio Rising, Felonious Monk, Soma County) featuring astrologer and palmist Axel Crowe, whom one reviewer has dubbed “Sherlock Holmes with a horoscope.”
Websites: navamsa.com, sextile.com
You can find his books on Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.
Putin puttin’ Palin in her place…
14 Oct
Putin puttin’ Palin in her place…
Partial transcript, CBS, September 2008
Katie Couric: “You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?”
Sarah Palin: “That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia…”
Couric: “Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials?”
Palin: “Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of … It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send out those to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia…”
Marina Lewycka (b. October 12): “Comedy can expose the soul” & other quotes on writing
12 Oct
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Marina Lewycka, born 12 October 1946, is a British novelist of Ukrainian origin. Her debut novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was long-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Six quotes on writing:
- One of the nice things about being a writer is that no one recognizes you.
- I’m a huge fan of Chaucer, he has the most wonderful characters, and I drew on him a lot for Two Caravans.
- My preferred place to write is in bed propped up with lots of cushions, and a nice pot of tea on a tray – but it can be hard on the back.
- I like to learn something as I write. I often start out with a subject I don’t know very much about and finding out more makes the process more interesting.
- You think comedy isn’t serious, but with comedy you can say such a lot that serious can’t. Comedy can expose the depths of the soul; funny is what we are when we least intend to be.
- You must have a good story and find the right voice to tell it. Another useful tip is show, don’t tell. In other words, don’t write that a character behaved badly, show us their bad behavior instead.
Mercury’s cowgirls gonna ride
10 Oct
Now that Mercury’s gone direct again, sisters gonna saddle up and ride.
~~~
Alan Annand is a Canadian astrologer, a graduate of the American College of Vedic Astrology and the British Faculty of Astrological Studies. He’s written two books on Vedic astrology: Stellar Astrology, a collection of astrological techniques, in-depth celebrity profiles, and analysis of mundane events, and Parivartana Yoga, a reference text for one of the most common yet powerful planetary combinations in Jyotish.
He’s also a writer of crime fiction, including his NEW AGE NOIR series (Scorpio Rising, Felonious Monk, Soma County) featuring astrologer and palmist Axel Crowe, whom one reviewer has dubbed “Sherlock Holmes with a horoscope.”
Websites: navamsa.com, sextile.com
You can find his books on Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.
“Al-Quebeca” ripped from tomorrow’s headlines
9 Oct
For years nothing happens. Then everything happens at once. This applies both to writing novels and launching terror strikes.
For the record, I’m a writer, not a terrorist, although I admit to a fascination with the latter. As a Canadian, I’ve watched terror events unfold across the world with frightening speed and consequences. These events usually occur at a distance, allowing Canadians to be mere spectators rather than forced participants. But sometimes, things happen right in our backyard.
In 1999 the LAX bomber, Ahmed Ressam, was intercepted in Port Angeles, WA, with a carload of explosives destined for the LA airport. He’d entered Canada in 1994 with a forged French passport and lived in Montreal for almost five years, surviving by stealing airport luggage. After a trip to Afghanistan where he learned how to build bombs, the RCMP began following him, and alerted US authorities when he crossed the border from Vancouver en route to Los Angeles.
In 2006, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) arrested a group of jihadists, the Toronto 18, as they took delivery of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate with which they’d planned to build massive bombs in U-Haul trailers. Their targets: the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CSIS offices in downtown Toronto, and a military base. After the bombs, they would storm Parliament, seize the Cabinet and behead the Prime Minister, all in time for the evening news and instant fame via al-Jazeera. But the Toronto 18 had been infiltrated and monitored for over a year by 700 security officers gathering evidence via 80,000 electronic intercepts.
In April 2013, following hard on the heels of the Boston Marathon bombings, two men with alleged al-Qaeda connections were arrested in Canada for plotting to derail a Canadian train travelling from Toronto to New York. Turns out there may have been an Iranian connection, wherein financial or technical aid was provided on behalf of al-Qaeda.
Apparently, news of that domestic terrorist plot raised only tepid interest from the US media, while the Twitter-verse responded with several jokes on the subject. Understandably, a neutralized threat in Canada pales in comparison to exploding bombs in Boston, but seriously, folks… Just because Canadians are liberal and polite doesn’t mean our society is any less liable than America’s in unwittingly harboring terrorists in our midst. Quite the contrary.
I wrote the first draft of my novel Al-Quebeca in 2009 and revised it several times over subsequent years. Each time it all seems even more inevitable. The plot involves an al-Qaeda sleeper cell in Montreal summoned to life by order of a Paris-based mullah. Although Osama bin Laden is dead and gone, he’d issued a fatwa several years ago, vowing revenge against any country, Canada included, that had sided with America in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In Al-Quebeca, the Montreal terrorist plot involves a simultaneous three-pronged strike: to sabotage the Hydro-Quebec electrical grid that supplies power to Boston and New York, behead the visiting Governor of New York and, for body-count bonus points, kill thousands of hockey fans with nerve gas.
Preposterous? Not really. For years the CIA has warned CSIS that Montreal, where almost one in four residents is Muslim or has ties to Arabic-speaking homelands, is a hot-bed of al-Qaeda sleeper cells awaiting the call to jihad. We all think it could never happen here. Until it does.
(Currently, in a case of life mirroring art, the radical jihadist group ISIS is encouraging independent acts of terrorism in every western country that participates in the US-led coalition against their brutal insurrection in Iraq and Syria.)
In Al-Quebeca, the heroine Sophie Gillette is a Montreal homicide detective dispatched in the middle of a snowstorm to investigate the suspicious hit-and-run death of an Iranian engineer who worked for Hydro-Quebec. Defying easy resolution, the case launches her on a collision course with biker wars, arms smuggling and, unexpectedly, a terrorist plot.
In the course of her investigation, Gillette uncovers militant students at Concordia University, drug financiers and a rogue professor with a PhD in chemical toxicology. All are linked to a shadowy figure called al-Quebeca whom Gillette must track to a brutal confrontation.
I just hate to be prescient, but as Aldous Huxley once said, The trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense.
But don’t take my word for it. Read Al-Quebeca and judge for yourself.
You can purchase it at Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo or Smashwords.
Belva Plain (b. October 9): “Read the best there is and thereby learn.”
9 Oct
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Belva Plain (9 October 1915 – 12 October 2010) was an American author. Over 30 million copies of her novels were printed in 22 languages. 21 of her novels appeared on the New York Times best-seller list.
Six quotes about writing:
- I’m an early riser, and morning is my work time. I have a special workroom where no one interrupts me except my dog.
- I write in longhand on a yellow pad. I don’t use a computer because I like to take time to think about what I’m saying.
- I think it’s as difficult for me to describe the process of inspiration as it would be for a composer to tell how a melody took shape in his/her head.
- My advice to would-be writers? READ. Read the best there is and thereby learn. And keep trying. Writing isn’t easy. It’s very hard work, requiring a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
- I wrote Evergreen because I had to. I had no real idea that it might be published. I know how competitive the world is and I didn’t want to become the sad victim of false hopes.
- I thought it was time to write about the kind of people I know. I got sick of reading the same old story, told by Jewish writers, of the same old stereotypes – the possessive mothers, the worn-out fathers, all the rest of the neurotic rebellious unhappy self-hating tribe. I wanted to write a different novel about Jews – and a truer one.
John Lennon (b. October 9): “Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law…”
9 Oct
“Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.”
~ John Lennon, b. 9 October 1940
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SOMA COUNTY: New Age Noir no.3
8 Oct
It’s coming. The third installment in Alan Annand’s NEW AGE NOIR series, featuring astrologer extraordinaire Axel Crowe, will be released Fall 2015.
With rave reviews from The Mountain Astrologer, Stephen Forrest, Dell Horoscope, Michael Lutin and Horoscope Guide, this series delivers literary and esoteric crime fiction unlike anything else you’ve ever read.
The 5-star reviews: https://www.pinterest.com/alanannand/scorpio-rising/
“Annand portrays an investigator using an esoteric toolkit – astrology, palmistry, numerology – in a serious and effective way that shines new light on the so-called occult arts. Sherlock Holmes with a horoscope. ” ~ an Amazon reviewer
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