Metal Machine Is Back
by Levi Asher on Monday, March 16, 2009 11:22 pm
1. A sheriff in Chicago just can't stand evicting any more people. This is one of the better things Andrew Sullivan has ever posted.
2. Xkcd brings in Quixote.
3. Bob Dylan has a new album coming out. The title? Together Through Life. Not sure who Bob Dylan is together with -- last I heard, a whole lot of people and nobody in particular -- but I am sure the album will be worth a listen.
4. Just for fun: the "Rock Island" opening bit from Meredith Willson's The Music Man... on a real train.
5. John Updike was preparing for the publication of My Father's Tears and Other Stories when he died.
6. Lou Reed's legendary Metal Machine is back. Now it's a trio, the Metal Machine Trio, performing something called "The Creation of the Universe". Guitar, noise, no vocals. Should be good.
7. From HTML Giant: literary doppelgangers (Spy Magazine used to call these "Separated at Birth"). The Salinger/Pacino resemblance is pretty funny. I always thought Douglas Coupland looked like Norm McDonald, but that didn't make this list.
8. Cartoonist Lynda Barry, meanwhile, looks exactly like her main character Marlys!
9. Also from HTML Giant: a really fun interview with Noah Cicero of Youngstown, Ohio.
10. Perspectives on online and traditional publishing: Clay Shirky on what's happening with (to?) newspapers, Kassia Kroszer on a particularly lame SXSW panel discussion.
11. Ken Kalfus, Gary Shtynegart and others will contemplate the ever-relevant Russian humorist Nikolai Gogol at New York City's 92nd Street Y on March 30.
12. Go Steve Wozniak! Once a nerd hero, always a nerd hero. Who remembers the US Festival?
13. I appreciate that Tim Barrus posted some thoughts about my memoir in progress. I've been sweating out every damn sentence and paragraph of this monstrosity, and I often feel discouraged, so it helps to learn that Tim Barrus seems to get what I'm trying to do here. (I've also gotten very encouraging feedback from many, many of you, and I appreciate it all!)
Tim Barrus is also challenging me with some of his remarks about what I'm doing. Barrus knows a bit about writing, and about memoirs, and he's absolutely right that attempting this "can be a real bitch". I guess it's a no-brainer that the balance between private and public is especially hard when writing a memoir, and that it's easy to get lost in the hall of mirrors. But Barrus says "There's an edge. It rocks" and that's exactly what I wanted to make sure of. Next installment tomorrow night ...
2. Xkcd brings in Quixote.
3. Bob Dylan has a new album coming out. The title? Together Through Life. Not sure who Bob Dylan is together with -- last I heard, a whole lot of people and nobody in particular -- but I am sure the album will be worth a listen.
4. Just for fun: the "Rock Island" opening bit from Meredith Willson's The Music Man... on a real train.
5. John Updike was preparing for the publication of My Father's Tears and Other Stories when he died.
6. Lou Reed's legendary Metal Machine is back. Now it's a trio, the Metal Machine Trio, performing something called "The Creation of the Universe". Guitar, noise, no vocals. Should be good.
7. From HTML Giant: literary doppelgangers (Spy Magazine used to call these "Separated at Birth"). The Salinger/Pacino resemblance is pretty funny. I always thought Douglas Coupland looked like Norm McDonald, but that didn't make this list.
8. Cartoonist Lynda Barry, meanwhile, looks exactly like her main character Marlys!
9. Also from HTML Giant: a really fun interview with Noah Cicero of Youngstown, Ohio.
10. Perspectives on online and traditional publishing: Clay Shirky on what's happening with (to?) newspapers, Kassia Kroszer on a particularly lame SXSW panel discussion.
11. Ken Kalfus, Gary Shtynegart and others will contemplate the ever-relevant Russian humorist Nikolai Gogol at New York City's 92nd Street Y on March 30.
12. Go Steve Wozniak! Once a nerd hero, always a nerd hero. Who remembers the US Festival?
13. I appreciate that Tim Barrus posted some thoughts about my memoir in progress. I've been sweating out every damn sentence and paragraph of this monstrosity, and I often feel discouraged, so it helps to learn that Tim Barrus seems to get what I'm trying to do here. (I've also gotten very encouraging feedback from many, many of you, and I appreciate it all!)
Tim Barrus is also challenging me with some of his remarks about what I'm doing. Barrus knows a bit about writing, and about memoirs, and he's absolutely right that attempting this "can be a real bitch". I guess it's a no-brainer that the balance between private and public is especially hard when writing a memoir, and that it's easy to get lost in the hall of mirrors. But Barrus says "There's an edge. It rocks" and that's exactly what I wanted to make sure of. Next installment tomorrow night ...
4 reponses to "Metal Machine Is Back"
The amazing thing, Levi, is that while you've "been sweating out every damn sentence and paragraph" of your memoir, it sounds casual and fresh. You make it seem easy, conversational. That is one of the attributes of good writing, y'know.
if its easy to read, i know it musta been hell to write.
that's a paraphrase, and i don't remember who said that (anybody??? bueller?) but i think it holds merit here, thank you for all the time you put into this, it is worthwhile and fun to check on my breaks at work.
1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, my man.
Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, I Heard Her Call My Name, European Son.Is Freddy--Wasted Days and Wasted Nights--Fender on Dylan's new album?
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