Literary Matters

Time again for "Literary Matters"! And I am so sorry to tell you this, but there are lots and lots of them. I'm not even going to tell you how many, because you'll certainly stop reading. As well you should! Cursed literary matters! 1) TODAY ONLY! Roy Blount Jr. will be at Off Square Books (5 PM, the usual time) to read from his new book ALPHABETTER JUICE, some of the mighty pleasures of which have already been outlined here. Don't miss a chance to see Roy Blount Jr.! Note to the government: I bought my own copy of ALPHABETTER JUICE, so shut up! I am no publisher's shill! In fact, as far as I can tell, publishers hate me! 2) After Mr. Blount's reading, why not head over to the Kitty Snacks party conveniently located at Southside Gallery? The decent fellows at Kitty Snacks have a brand new issue out, featuring work by John Brandon and many other notables. And the gray cover screams, "Buy me! I'm entirely gray!" But I think that's one of those tricks that only the hippest of the hip can pull off, you know, like that billboard for bail bondsmen I saw once, or a club with no sign on the door. But when you get in, it's lots of wholesome fun! Kitty Snacks! 3) You know who is also reading at Off Square soon (June 9)? That's right, Ace Atkins. He has a brand new novel out called THE RANGER. I'm halfway through it and loving every minute. Yes, government, Ace gave me a free advance reading copy, so what? Though THE RANGER is set in the here and now, Ace wanted it to have the feel of those great Burt Reynolds (or Joe Don Baker, pictured) revenge pics from the 1970s, popularly known as "hixploitation." And boy did he succeed, spectacularly! Now that I have given you the code, you can read the book on dual levels, because I know how much you enjoy doing that, experiencing things on dual levels. You love that! 4) Ace also loaned me an advance copy of THE END OF EVERYTHING by Megan Abbott. I read it and think it might be her best book yet, though it is so hard to pick just one! Were I to blurb it, I would say, "Do you like great writing and being really nervous and creeped out all the time? Even when you sleep? Do you want to be pulled down into a terrible and beautiful and inexorable nightmare, no, dream, no, nightmare, no, dream, no, nightmare? Then this is the book for you!" Also, SHE is coming here to read at the end of July so we have that to look forward to. 5) Megan's book just got a starred review from my sworn enemy Publishers Weekly! So this is the one thing we can agree on, PW and I, like characters making an unholy secret alliance on GAME OF THRONES. PS: My blurb might also say, "Abbott's beloved Freud glimmers darkly from every riveting page!" Ugh, that's awful. Just read the book! I keep blurbing Megan's books in retrospect. 6) Speaking of blurbs that will never happen, Kevin Brockmeier says something really, really nice about me in the new issue of the Oxford American, something too nice for me to repeat here, something that would make a perfect blurb, but as we have seen, no book of mine is ever going to come out ever again, not even the cat book that is alarming, confounding, and distressing publishers' flunkies the world over even as we speak, but I have the blurb ready to go, thanks to the generous and gracious Kevin Brockmeier, and I will always have it, and the book will never come out, no book will ever come out, so maybe they can just carve it on my gravestone, that thing that Kevin Brockmeier said. 7) The real attraction of the new OA (well, I haven't read the whole issue yet, it's usually all good!) is a sparkling new short story by Elizabeth Kaiser, also known as "Elizabeth" of "blog" fame. 8) And another former "student," John Oliver Hodges, has a really good and bold and moving article in there, too! It's a follow-up to his piece in the previous issue, also about his (and Elizabeth's) great mentor Barry Hannah. Speaking of which, the new Kitty Snacks (see #2 above) features several never-before-published full-color photographs that John took of Barry. He is not only a fine writer, John Oliver Hodges, but an accomplished photographer, yes, where do these people get all this talent? It makes me sick. I didn't teach John or Elizabeth a thing. 9) Check out John's novella WAR OF THE CRAZIES, just out from Main Street Rag press! Now that one, I really did blurb. Blurbs! Is there anything less useful? (Note to the government: yes, I read WAR OF THE CRAZIES in manuscript, but I won my actual copy in a raffle, I really did, so that doesn't count!) 10) Yes, John Brandon and I are in the new Kitty Snacks together AND we are in the new Oxford American together, just as we were in the previous issue of McSweeney's together. In fact, we are going to get an enormous shirt with two neckholes and just walk around like that from now on. 11) Are you still reading this? Don't lie to me! 12) McNeil has found what seems to be a series of mysteries featuring members of "the Rat Pack." It is not for me to say whether on the surface they appear to be the worst books ever written. After all, haven't we been told time and time again not to judge a book by its cover? Like, didn't I tell you that earlier in this "post"? I did! But it was so long ago you have probably forgotten. Look again. Still, the titles do not inspire confidence! There is one called EVERYBODY KILLS SOMEBODY SOMETIME - this dubious assertion a "play on words" inspired by the Dean Martin hit "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime." While I was checking to make sure this is a real mystery series (and it is, but those covers, they just don't LOOK real somehow... in fact they seem vaguely illegal to me) I ran across one not listed on McNeil's "link," one called LUCK BE A LADY, DON'T DIE. What does that EVEN MEAN? I "get" that it is supposed to be a "play on words" based on the song "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" from GUYS AND DOLLS, but it's just barely that, isn't it? And does it MEAN something? Isn't it just a string of words, I mean, isn't it? Well maybe these will turn out to be the greatest books ever written and I'm just a jerk. 13) The new "LaFa Shopper" got shoved into our mailbox yesterday, but once again John Arrechea IS MISSING! We do hear from Faylene Bryant with the breaking story "Vacation Bible School Approaching Fast," plus there's a column called "The Playhouse" in which one Camille Anding lists "Things I'd Like To Find" (dozens and dozens of them!) including "My keychain that remains hidden since last January" and "More movies as charming as 'The Sound of Music.'"

Literary Matters

Ugh! Literary matters! Everybody hates them because they are so horrible. That's why we are always so reluctant to put forward our reviled regular feature "Literary Matters." But this one literary matter is okay: "Blog" Buddy Mark Childress is coming to town! Everybody is coming to town! Literary matters are everywhere! They threaten to destroy us. There are so many of them! Soon the very earth will be swallowed by literary matters. The magazines alone are overwhelming and deadly! Suddenly I have so many magazines. My friend Michael J. Bible who works at Square Books and co-edits Kitty Snacks magazine (another magazine!) is in TWO of them! He is in the new Oxford American (with Barry Hannah on the cover) AND the fiction issue of the ESPN magazine. He won a contest! Also in that issue are Wells Tower, Dave Eggers, and John Brandon, to name a stellar few. I wouldn't be surprised if Wright Thompson was in there somewhere. I haven't looked yet. Literature! I hate you so much! Can't you leave us alone, literature? Can't you let us read our ESPN magazine in peace? (Actually, Wright, who is a "sportswriter" by trade, is a very literary writer, in a good way, so the ESPN magazine has always been full of literature when you think about it... just not the fictional variety so much.) Then I got my copy of the Knee-Jerk magazine, which is usually an online thing but now they have done an offline thing which is made of paper and I have a short story in it. It features some material I reworked like crazy from my famous and unlamented lost novel SHUT UP, UGLY, which is apparently never going to come out, but if it does, I will finally get to have one of those "appeared in a significantly different form in..." notices on my copyright page. Something to look forward to! Lots of good fiction writers in the issue, plus me, ha ha! Yeah, but you got your Kim Chinquee, Michael Czyzniejewski (Hey! Both of them once had stories in the magazine Quick Fiction, issue #7, the "Love and Marriage" issue, which also contains a story by McNeil!), Dan Kennedy, Roy Kesey, Joe Meno, an interview with Harold Ramis, and it even has something by that guy who wrote that crazy manifesto that I couldn't handle that time. So check out Knee-Jerk magazine, won't you? You can see why I have been in a "blogging" torpor for the past few days, right? So many literary matters crushing the life out of me. And so many preparations to make! So many literary events! Ace Atkins! Tom Franklin! Lee Durkee! Wright Thompson! and others (including me) will be on hand to read passages from our friend and neighbor Dean Faulkner Wells's new memoir at the Lyric Theater on March 19. She is Faulkner's niece and William Faulkner raised her but there is so much more to it than that! Find out for yourself! She will be there, too, of course, so come by and say hello and get your copy signed! (Speaking of Ace Atkins, I am not saying he is addicted to ebay, but he just bought a photograph of Burt Reynolds pulling a gun on Flipper, who was a famous dolphin at the time, trust me, kids.) Then, on the 23rd, at Off Square Books, Mark Childress strides triumphantly into Oxford with his spanking new novel GEORGIA BOTTOMS! Ha ha! I said "spanking" and "bottoms." I'm bringing my whole graduate class to see him and everyone else in the world will be there too, naturally, so why not you? Mark is always loads of fun! He entertains as well as informs! He's not one of those blah blah blah monotone readers that make literary matters so excruciating for all of us. Come see what I mean! Then - just one day later - it's the book conference! I've told you about my panel with Michael Kupperman, Joe Matt, and (more recently added) SPECIAL EXITS author Joyce Farmer... but what if I told you that Kent Osborne is coming to town for the book conference just because he loves learning? Maybe you'll see him! But who else will be on "panels"? Let me limit myself to people we have mentioned on the "blog" before, because my typing finger is getting tired: Kevin Brockmeier (who also has a piece in the new OA... oh, and Elizabeth does too!), Natasha Trethewey, Beth Ann Fennelly (also in OA!), Wright Thompson (again! Maybe he is to blame for all these literary matters), and lots of wonderful writers like Mark Richard and Karen Russell (both recently extremely well reviewed in the New York Times) I have never gotten around to mentioning on the "blog" for some reason, and we will be celebrating the birthday of Tennessee Williams at the book conference, so maybe I will put on a soiled undershirt and scream a lot, and I am forgetting so many people, and so many other literary matters to which I meant to call your attention just so you can suffer like I do, but this is it for me, I'm stopping now, I will never "blog" again, no one will ever "blog" again, I have used up all the "blogging," it is over now, everything is over now, there is no more "internet," go home.

McNeil Is Real!

Scott Phillips is the latest person to cast doubt upon the existence of McNeil! I don't know, but I think it is because all the other members of our book club are on facebook, but McNeil is not. This is what counts as existence in our troubled times! They all laughed at Fred Flinstone for believing in the Great Gazoo, too. I showed Mr. Phillips the pictures of McNeil's bruised arm and McNeil just before he learned that he had swine flu. And I forgot the time McNeil came down here to read one of his stories at a Kitty Snacks party and met several real-life people such as the girl who eats dry oatmeal (who also used to doubt McNeil's existence) and the smart student with whom I oft discuss Little Lulu and eefing. (The "student" is now an ex-student, and of course "girl" is condescending, but I hope you will agree that "the girl who eats dry oatmeal" has more of a ring to it than "the young woman who eats dry oatmeal." But maybe I should change it. Yes, I should.)

World of Birds

Caught a glimpse of one of the baby robins today. And rushed to tell you about it! So they do exist. Meanwhile, David (one of the Kitty Snacks editors) reports that the baby birds on the balcony at Square Books are doing fine. They're flying, he thinks.

Jerry Print

One of the enterprising young editors of yon Kitty Snacks magazine sent me this "link" to a fantastic Jerry Lewis print by Drew Friedman. Is that what you call it? A print? I can't afford it, but you can! Don't lie to me. Buy it now! The government wants you to know that I get nothing from this. Nothing but the happiness I get whenever I sit around and think about Jerry, which is always.

Innuendoes Aplenty

Leave it to Michael, one of the editors of Kitty Snacks, to bring everything together, and by "everything" I mean Sam Shepard and Ruth Buzzi. This kind young man (who says he is rereading AS I LAY DYING because of our recent "posts" about Little Lulu; the "blog" has a positive impact on human life!) sends along a clip (below). Sam Shepard was in this band at one time, says Michael, though I do not see him here. However, I like to squint my eyes and pretend. Or I don't know, maybe that IS him keeping time and horsing around with Buzzi. The passage of life confuses me. No, wait, it's Sam for sure! Sam and Ruth. Check out that distinctive profile at 1:12. But this is a "blog" and it doesn't matter if I'm right. As Michael warns, be prepared for Buzzi's saucy innuendoes. If you do not enjoy saucy innuendoes, this may not be the clip for you!

What Happened to Pirates

My friend Michael, who is one of the editors of Kitty Snacks, has put up an eloquent memory of Barry. It is grouped with some others. Michael quotes from Barry's syllabus, of which here is a part: "Why does lack of action, red-blooded emotion, plague graduate school fiction? This old flag has waved too long. What happened to pirates, storms, fiends, horror, temptresses with cleavage, lies, theft, greed, lust, random acts of meaningless (or meaningFUL) violence?"

Parties and Fun

Speaking of Kitty Snacks, they are having a party one week from today, so get with it! Guess who will be there: McNeil! That's right! He has a story in the upcoming issue of Kitty Snacks. Plus there will be a story by George Singleton and drawings by Jason Polan. Of course the most important thing about McNeil coming to Oxford is the 2nd Annual McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival, which is a film festival attended only by McNeil and myself. Sometimes there are like three years between our annual festivals. And sometimes Theresa comes into the room and rolls her eyes and leaves. It is so sad. McNeil's opening night pick for this year: the Kirk Douglas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ann-Margaret, Paul Lynde vehicle THE VILLAIN.

Remember: Jerry Lee Lewis Is Not Jerry Lewis

One of the editors of Kitty Snacks was excited to tell me that Barry Hannah wrote about Jerry Lewis in his book CAPTAIN MAXIMUS. I have read CAPTAIN MAXIMUS and thought surely I would have recalled such a thing. Sure enough he found the page to show me and it was Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis are not the same thing! In a way, they are opposite things. It is not the editor's fault! People tell me exciting things about "Jerry Lewis" all the time when they are really talking about Jerry Lee Lewis, who, don't get me wrong, is good too.

Youthful and Hep

I received a message from one of the editors of Kitty Snacks. Said he: "I recently got the new Believer Film issue in the mail and there's a great DVD featuring crazy rare videos of Godard going around the USA. There's also a clip from the Dick Cavett show with Godard where he mentions Jerry Lewis. Check it out!" I am attaching a picture of the editors of Kitty Snacks so you can see how youthful and hep they are. The very idea that I have one of them writing emails about Jerry Lewis swells my heart with pride. I should also mention that I am an hour into THE BIG MOUTH (starring Jerry Lewis) and I laughed out loud when Jerry played tennis in slow motion, swinging at (and missing) several tennis balls in a row. Also, the bad guy's boat/hideout contains green carpet (with a shocking red center), orange curtains, and purple lampshades, and Jerry wears a parti-colored bathrobe in a few scenes, and the bright red L-shaped couch in his hotel room is dotted with turquoise and canary yellow pillows, all of which should make McNeil very happy.

Nice Snacks

I have just returned from the launch of Kitty Snacks, which the editors described this evening as a cross between a magazine and a zine. So I guess it's a gazine! Whatever it is, it's great. I pulled a "Sheri Joseph" at tonight's event. I am referring to the time Sheri Joseph read part of my novel to an audience when I could not be there. Tonight I read contributions from two Kitty Snacks contributors who were not present: Kent and McNeil. First I read the dialogue from one of Kent's comic strips out loud, and explained the pictures. A good time was had by all. Though perhaps it is best to read a comic strip for yourself! On the other hand, my stilted descriptions of Kent's panels may have added a certain unintended layer of fun. But chances are they did not! Luckily, not even I could ruin Kent's comic strip for the enthusiastic crowd. McNeil's story was a hit as well. Here is one of McNeil's lines that got a HUGE LAUGH: "They tried to take my memory away, but I said, 'Uh-uh. No way.' And then I don't remember what happened." Another part near the end made ME laugh (a high-pitched choking giggle, I fear) as I read, which I consider very unprofessional. In fact, on the PREVIOUS AFTERNOON by some stroke of irony I had instructed my graduate students NEVER TO LAUGH AS THEY READ. And a bunch of them were there to see me fail. But I was reading someone else's story, which is not as bad as laughing at your own story, which was the main thing under consideration in my prescient lecture. Or am I rationalizing? MAYBE! If YOU couldn't be there, why not buy a copy of Kitty Snacks for yourself? And then you can pretend! I was happy to see the man who says "palimpsest" there at the Kitty Snacks launch. When I told him that I have known McNeil since I was 13, he asked for some reason, "Does he like Jerry Lewis, too?" And I said, "Does he!" Then the man who says "palimpsest" said that he has rented CINDERFELLA and plans to watch it soon. It's going to be his first Jerry movie. And I was like, this is the greatest night ever. Thanks, Kitty Snacks!

McNeil, Briefly

Welcome once more, dear friends, to "McNeil, Briefly," the place on the "blog" where all the latest in McNeil news is aggregated and disseminated. First, McNeil has sent the picture above by e-mail. What can it mean? Is it a response to an earlier dispatch from Kathleen Judge? Is it commentary on a famous, controversial work of art from a few decades ago? Who knows? There is no accompanying text! So I tend, as usual, to blame the pain pills. Speaking of pain pills, McNeil's recent surgery prevents him from being with us in Oxford, Mississippi, on Tuesday night, when the "Kitty Snacks" magazine - in which McNeil's short story "The Zoo" appears - will launch for real. "Click" here for details of the event, at which I will read a line or two in celebration of the "Kitty Snacks."

These Kids These Days

Ha ha ha! Look at these cats eating ice cream! Silly kitties! Hey, that reminds me. Some smart kids around here are putting together one of those "literary magazines" you've heard so much about. They're calling it "Kitty Snacks." These guys, unless I am mistaken, are all in Dent May's band and at least one of them works at Square Books and they just couldn't be more enterprising or nicer young men. They're putting a lot of time and energy into the magazine to make it special and just right. Well, they've asked McNeil and me to be in the first issue but despite that I think it's going to be a great magazine. So keep your eyes peeled for "Kitty Snacks." And tell 'em "Bloggy" the "Blog" Mascot sent you.