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OK, This is Also Brilliant

Explore Radiohead's YouTube page.

-- Sean

In Praise of Matt Bell

For a while now I've wanted to say something on this blog about Matt Bell, a great short story writer who contributes to the Barrelhouse blog and sometimes comments here. Now, happily, I have the perfect opportunity, because Matt just won the Million Writers Award with his story "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken." The story, which first appeared on Storyglossia, demonstrates that there's something weirdly deep going on in Christian heavy metal, and also that if you want to capture the inexplicable sadness of pop culture, there's no better way than to write about Alex Trebek.

Congratulations, also, to Shane Jones, whose story on the Hobart website "I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands" was selected as a notable story of 2007.

-- Sean

History as It's Never Been Told Before: Drunk

Drunk History

-- Sean

Superheroes! Texas Con Men! Naked Writers!

And now, a public service announcement, of sorts.

You always knew that following this blog would pay dividends. Now, dear Hobart blog readers, you are about to reap the benefits of your loyalty to our tiny outpost here in our far corner of the internet.

Our friends at the Oxford American have written in to let us know about a special subscription deal that we thought we would pass along. The offer is open to new subscribers, and there is a secret code involved (sadly, you are not required to translate the secret code on your Oxford American decoder ring, but you can't have everything). Go to the OA's website and on the subscription page type in the code: Q0608

When you do this, you'll get one year (four issues) of OA for only $10.95. Your subscription will include the 10th anniversary of the award-winning, much sought after music issue with the CD inside. Hurry, though. This offer expires on July 13.

Other literary blogs offer book give-aways, but to that we say posh. Posh! We're pimping a great literary magazine for less than $3 an issue. They've already gone broke at least once. We think they might need the help. Besides, look at the stylized cover photo of the current issue. That pig. Those blurred cars on the amusement park ride. Those saturated colors. The expression on the face of that girl. How do they do it?

Frankly, I would pay $10.95 just to read Pia Ehrhardt's essay about swimming naked in New Orleans, and you'll get that in the first issue alone, plus a story by Mary Miller, whose collection will be published next year by Hobart's Short Flight/Long Drive book-publishing division.

So, although it may have seemed like a losing proposition at the time, the hours you have invested here have actually paid back dividends. The Hobart Blog -- we're like the hedge fund of literary blogs. And we promise we won't do this very often, but hey, OA is a great magazine, and this seems like a great deal.

(No promotional fee was paid for this announcement. Hobart reserves the right to decline future offers to advertise for discounted sleep aids and niche-market kitchen appliances. The Oxford American decoder ring was made up, but there really is an essay by Pia Ehrhardt about swimming naked in New Orleans and a cool story by Mary Miller. All rights reserved.)

-- Sean

A Sort-Of Hobart Reading

On Saturday, July 19, there will be a Hobart reading that is not really a Hobart reading, when Hobart web editor Savannah Schroll Guz and I join Rupert Wondolowski for a reading at Baltimore's Minas Gallery. The reading is part of the 510 Reading Series curated by Baltimore literary heroes Jen Michalski and Michael Kimball. Details here: 510 Readings, where you can see our lovely headshots and bios.

Just to be clear, the only connection between the reading and Hobart is that Savannah helps edit the Hobart website, and I like to write for this blog. We aren't necessarily reading work from Hobart. But since one of the continuing themes of this blog is the vast network of connections between Hobart and the world, I thought I would mention it.

The other week I was thinking about the five stages I always go through on the rare occasions I'm asked to participate in a literary reading. They bear a disturbing resemblance to the five stages of grief. I'd be interested to know if something similar overcomes the Hobart blog readership (that's you) when they (we're still talking about you) are asked to read their work in public. So I'm going to go ahead and post the idea here and ask if anyone else has had a similar experience, or if in this I am completely and utterly alone.

So here they are, the five emotional stages of being asked to participate in a literary reading (Below I ask you to share your own pre-reading emotional trauma stories):

1. Elation over being asked. The outside world has just confirmed, in a small way, that you are not simply a person in his or her underwear, alone in a quiet apartment, typing words into a laptop. No, you are a writer! Finally, external confirmation of the identity you've been working so hard to construct!

2. A feeling of supreme self-confidence. This lasts about a week or two. You walk around repeating the words, "I am not simply a person in his or her underwear, alone in a quiet apartment, typing words into a laptop." You casually ask your friends if they happened to know that you were recently invited to participate in a literary reading. "Did you know" you ask them, "that I was recently invited to participate in a literary reading?" Invariably, it turns out that they did not know this.

3. A mild panic that escalates to silent terror as you realize you don't have much of anything to say, and nothing particularly brilliant to read. Stage three arrives after the initial thrill of the invitation has worn off, usually sometime in the third week. It's sort of the "No, wait, I am a fraud" counteraction to numbers 1 and 2 above. For me, this panic always culminates in a frenzied search for something, anything, to read that I think will be good enough to entertain an audience of strangers, and of course nothing seems up to the task. In my case, this existential panic may arise from my distinct lack of a major book deal. Or any book deal, for that matter. There was a moment, a month ago, when it dawned on me that at the 510 reading I couldn't read the personal essays I've been writing lately, which tend to go over well, and which I've been a little more interested in writing over the past year or so, because the 510 reading series is a FICTION reading series. That was a low point.

4. Bargaining. You begin to think of things you could do other than fulfill your obligation to read at the event. Maybe you could cancel? Write a comedy monologue and just deliver that? Can you just read the thing about pig masturbation you wrote for Comedy Central years ago? People always love that piece. Maybe you could read a personal essay, even though this is a fiction reading series? What are they going to do, stop you and force you to read a story? These are artists. Perhaps they will let you interview the other writers? What if you read from some other writer's work, something really great? The scene of the Duchess' interview of Sancho Panza in "Don Quixote." That would kill. This, of course, leads finally to:

5. Acceptance. For whatever reason -- for no reason -- the anxiety just goes away. You realize it's a party, you only have talk for a few minutes, and that everyone will forget you 20 minutes after it's over. You read over something you wrote a while back, that maybe you had forgotten about, and you realize it isn't really all that bad. You think back on all of not-quite-so-brilliant prose and poetry you have listened to at live readings. Hey, your stuff is at least as good as the worst of that!

What about you? Do you go through something similar? Or am I completely alone in my neuroses? I will say that although I've done very few public readings, each one gets a little easier, and a little more fun. At some point you realize you're just talking to a group of fellow book lovers who, through coincidence and your own dumb luck, have given you the floor for a couple of minutes.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting Savannah, Rupert, Jen and Michael on the 19th, and if you drop by, please say hello.

Oh, and post or e-mail me your pre-reading emotional roller-coaster experiences. They might also make good fodder for the blog (nothing posted or written about unless you give your permission -- it can all be strictly between us if you wish, like therapy without the couch).

Stories of literary reading-related drama or peril may be e-mailed to seancarman@speakeasy.net

-- Sean

A Wandering Fire

I haven't spent a lot of time browsing websites connected to novels, but Anya Ulinich's website for her novel "Petropolis" must be one of the best. There you can see Ms. Ulinich's visual art and read her explanation of how painting led her to writing and how in motherhood she found her voice. My personal favorites are the photographs of Ulinich's childhood in Moscow. They are amazing black and whites that are offered without captions, leaving us to imagine the scenes giving rise to their images. They are credited to Misha Ulinich, her father perhaps. Like Anya, he clearly has an eye for composition.

-- Sean

July Harper's

I haven't read a whole lot of Harper's but, regardless, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the new issue is possibly the best issue ever. Or, you know, at least, the most geared toward me. Strike that. I'm sticking with "the best ever." If one was to ask me about my favorite topics to read about, a likely response would get you: buffalo, magic, road trips, video games, outdoors/fishing/national parks. The article on buffalo was in last month's issue, but the rest are all covered this time around.

First up, included among their readings section is a short excerpt from Harry Crews unpublished memoir called "On Hitchhiking." 

Then, as you push past the political forum (which you may be interested in but I wasn't), you'll get to "The Magic Olympics." The article is just about exactly what you'd expect and at least, if not even more, awesome than you might imagine. 

The very next article is "Crimes Against Nature: The many uses of the Daniel Boone National Forest." It is great.

And then... and then! "The Perfect Game: Five years with the master of Pac-Man." If you've seen The King of Kong, you'll know who this is about. Personally, I don't think I could ever tire of reading about Billy Mitchell. 

So, there you have it. I'm usually more likely to be reading The New Yorker, or Esquire, or Playboy or Oxford American (when it comes to the glossies et al), but everyone should run out and grab this issue before it is off the newsstands (or at least read it online). It is awesome. We promise. 

-aaron

Plays on History

 

In Ron Currie, Jr.'s collection "God is Dead," the almighty takes the earthly form of a young Dinka woman in the North Darfur region of Sudan only to -- accidentally, it seems -- expire from starvation and the heat. That simple, productive idea illustrates one of the great pleasures of Ron's book: Its direct, clear language rises from a foundation of a thousand inspired choices. You can read it to learn that creative writing really combines two distinct skills -- the craft of using language well and the gift of being able to think up a ton of really cool, super-weird shit.

One of the nice touches in the first chapter that makes us believe the premise but also tells us we are in an imagined world is the appearance of Colin Powell. He's suddenly there, at the refugee camp where God searches for her lost son, sitting in an air-conditioned black Suburban, preparing to give a press conference and fuming about his lack of access to the President. It's a hilarious cameo that lends a real air of credibility and gravity to everything that first chapter is setting up.

David Hare does the same thing on a larger scale in his brilliant play "Stuff Happens," which weaves together public statements by Administration officials about the War in Iraq with imagined behind-closed-door scenes to tell what one character describes to the audience as a "defining drama of the new century."

Another book I would recommend along these lines, although I haven't read it, is Alan Bennett's "An Uncommon Reader," which starts from the premise that the Queen of England has suddenly and passionately taken up the hobby of reading literature.

Why does the device (if you can call it that) of putting a contemporary political figure into a fictional story work so well? And has it always been the case? I wonder if we already recognize our own times as historic, and our leaders as characters -- some noble heroes, some the unwitting victims of their own designs, and others already on their way to becoming the caricatures history will surely make them out to be.

-- Sean

Embrace Your Inner Nerd

Hobart guest editor and contributor Ryan Boudinot, whose story collection "The Littlest Hitler" was a Hobart favorite of 2007, has come up with what may be the best ever idea for a personal essay website. At My Very Worst Picture Boudinot uses his worst ever picture as the launching pad for a personal essay about, among things, his fifth-grade bifocal prescription, his childhood passion for Fantasy Wargaming magazine, and the worst pair of pants he ever owned. ("Those pants. Let's move on.")

I have been marveling for days at what a great idea this is. But beyond that, don't you think this is just what we need right now? Think of all of the wars and floods, the lies in politics, the constant bombardment of fake images of glamour -- and then consider the healing power of a confession prompted by a photographic portrait gone horribly wrong. I'm not exaggerating. My Very Worst Picture may be the website that saves the world.

-- Sean

Keyhole #3

The new issue of the relatively new Keyhole Magazine is out and it is: 1) very rad, and 2) very worth your ten bucks. Our own Elizabeth Ellen has both a poem and a story included (!!), Hobart #6 contributor Shellie Zacharia has a really great story, and there is a series of flashes about dead celebrities by Blake Butler, whose serialized-on-Hobart-online essay, "Redefining All-You-Can-Eat" should practically be required reading, if you asked me. So, yeah, lots of Hobarters/Hobartians but that is really beside the point. The issue is great regardless of any familiar names and, damn, just look at that super-cool cover! 

Also: I can't remember if I've already mentioned it around here, but they are reading now for an all-handwritten issue which we think sounds damn awesome and is an idea we both fully support and wish we'd thought of it first. 

-aaron