I've spent this weekend reading David Shields' exciting Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, a book that urges us to reject the notion that fiction is artistically or philosophically superior to nonfiction. This impressive book is empowering me to accept and embrace for the first time the dread and boredom I have always felt when I pick up a new issue of the New York Times Book Review and see a bunch of articles about novels and short story collections I've never heard of and have no clear use for.

1. In honor of the Knack's lead singer Doug Fieger, who passed away on Valentines Day, here's Sherman Alexie's tribute to "My Sharona". It was a pretty good song, and the best use of an octave in a riff since Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze".

2. I'm enjoying watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics on TV, but I often sense something basically unwholesome about the amount of buildup and tension that underlies this approach to competition. How is it good for an athlete to train for four years to lead up to a performance that lasts, in many cases, less than a minute? This leads to an emphasis on perfection, a dreadful and unnatural fear of error. This doesn't strike me as a mentally and emotionally healthy approach to sport, and I hate to see the look of shame that follows an excellent achievement marred by a single mistake. Personally, I prefer a more organic, holistic attitude towards competition. Maybe that's why baseball is still my favorite spectator sport. With 162 games a year and three hours per game, we get to know and appreciate the whole athlete, mistakes and quirks and all. Perfection, in my opinion, is rarely worth pursuing. That's what I think.

Don DeLillo's been on my mind lately. I dug up his 1985 classic White Noise two weeks ago after finding my youngest daughter listening to an indie band called, of all things, Airborne Toxic Event. Rereading from the beginning, I was surprised how quickly White Noise drew me back in, how fresh, wise and witty this book was. Fun, even.

Ben Yagoda, author of a new book called Memoir: A History, recently caused a splash by declaring that fiction has been replaced by memoir as the most important literary form, that "when it comes to proving points and making cases, fiction's day is done".

I almost had to skip another weekly Review review (did I mention I'm moving?), but I figure a short one will do. I hope to run more reports from PEN World Voices soon this weekend too.

Yeah, the server crashed and we were down for two days. I don't want to talk about it.

Here are some links I've been saving up ...

1. How would Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, vote today? His daughter Erica Heller tells us her guess, charmingly.

2. Sean Quinn of FiveThirtyEight.com sneaks in a neat On The Road reference.

1. It's been a long time since I've performed at the Bowery Poetry Club. I'll be doing a quick happy-hour show at 6:30 pm next Thursday, September 20, arranged by Long Island poet George Wallace and also featuring Donald Lev, Barbara Southard and Elliot Pepper on bongo drums. There's a $6 cover charge, but it'll be worth it. I'll be doing a fast fifteen minutes, and I may even have a special guest (if you read the litblogs, it's someone I bet you know and love) jump onstage with me for a bombastic duet.