notanotherbookreview

WANNABEAT by David Polonoff (Trouser Press Books, June 13).   WANNABEAT 's hero in late 1970's San Francisco, Philip Polarov, is on the "make" for women, money, and the elusive zeitgeist of inspiration--the authentic Beatnik poets of countercultural fame. He spots the occasional luminary at City Lights' bookstore (the historic poet's mecca founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and among the burnt-out denizens of North Beach cafes. Yet Philip is not a Beat groupie. He feels the true flame of  purpose and the sting of  Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction Theory ( "the meaning of a work is unstable and could have multiple alternative meanings, so the meaning could easily be the center as it could be the margins..."  ).  Philip could be a player or not.  Desperately, he looks for an impetus to ignite his "stream of drivel" into the work of a  literary contender. Meantime his is the itinerant life of a wannabe artist, chasing down risky and/or ted...

Invocation to Nature/C Virus Peace Amid the Chaos STAT COUNTER BLOG ARCHIVE ►   2020  ( 8 ) ►   2019  ( 17 ) ►   2018  ( 25 ) ►   2017  ( 26 ) ▼   2016  ( 22 ) ►   December  ( 5 ) ►   November  ( 3 ) ►   October  ( 2 ) ►   August  ( 1 ) ►   July  ( 3 ) ►   June  ( 3 ) ►   May  ( 1 ) ►   March  ( 1 ) ▼   February  ( 2 ) Go to Mars or die? Why the Emissions Standards of ... In honor of Pres' signing of Keystone & Dakota Pip... ►   January  ( 1 ) ►   2015  ( 17 ) ►   2014  ( 22 ) ►   2013  ( 25 ) ►   2012  ( 28 ) ►   2011  ( 10 ) ►   2009  ( 5 ) ►   2007  ( 3 ) ...

Called "one of the innovators of the short short story" by Publishers Weekly, Peter Cherches'  Whistler's Mother's Son and Other Curiosities (3/23, Pelekinesis) is a marvel of wit an ingenuity. In this collection of short works, over 100 pieces of prose, he veers from minimalism to satire, noir to children's tale, abstraction to surrealism. Cherches' imagination takes a variety of forms; parodies, standarized tests, nursery rhymes, conundrums, rescued cliches, misbegotten mysteries, dark Americana, existential misdemeanors, optimistic nihilism and more. Whistler's Mother's Son features material never before published, published in small magazines, and from his early  Condensed Book .   Here are beloved characters; Hamlet, Gertrude Stein, Amelia Earhart, Fred Flintstone, Mr. Mondrian--hard-boiled dicks, a man with two mustaches and even a confused Peter Cherches. Though I have read  Between a Dream and a Cup of Coffee,  Lift Your Right Arm  ...

https://www.kindstory.org/ I have a story on this site, Caroline Leavitt has one featured that's very good. Site is a small way to counter all the reportage focussed on the reverse of kindness. Adds an experience people might not think about a lot, the exchange of small or large kindness. What does it mean? Anyway here's mine. Leavitt's worth reading on site. SW A guy sits in a folding chair that's chained to a traffic sign, reading. His gloved hands hold a shallow cardboard box containing a book. His hooded face leans down, totally concentrated; a private act on this popular downtown corner. His battered sign says he's in the beginning stages of a debilitating disease. Yet he has good color. His clothes look okay, his eyes sparkle behind thick glasses when he talks about books. A couple feet from his chair is a food wagon. Construction workers, arrayed on the sidewalk, wait for coffee, Danish, egg sandwich on a bagel.  I break the line with my water p...

The Archbishop's Ceiling by Arthur Miller, presented by Regeneration Theatre, is a play rarely done and this was the first New York production.  I thought I knew Miller's work but never heard of this  play set in the 1970's in an unnamed Eastern European country, where government controls  information and the freedom of writers.  In this behind the "Iron Curtain" drama, Miller, who lived through the McCarthy era, had insights into the clash between governments' need to control information and writers' need for free speech. This reverberates in 2019's chaotic "fake news" environment. Our former Cold War enemy's divide and conquer tactics, that influenced our 2016 elections, is a propaganda model used in the former soviet bloc and now imported abroad. History does repeat itself, though never in the same form. Miller's play opens with Adrian and Maya having drinks in an elegant high ceilinged room in a bygone Imperial style. Maya ...

WE ARE WHAT WE PRETEND TO BE: The first and Last Works w/special commentary from Nanette Vonnegut has never before been in print. Vanguard, a member of the Perseus Book Group, will be publishing it this Fall. The book is a treat for any Vonnegut fan and useful for aspiring writers. I love Kurt Vonnegut for his strong heart, whether breaking with irony or crackling with humor. His wit was beyond rapier, even off-center going after unexpected targets and he improvised like a clairvoyant. He's full of spontaneous feeling and more accurate than not. I was once waiting for a plane in the Iowa City airport, as he was getting off one. He caught my eye and pointed to the book I was reading, Fitzgerald’s “The Crack-up.” He made a “thumbs up” gesture and touched his heart. He mimed a finger across his neck about it being suicidal. Vonnegut loved the book, Fitzgerald, and, though I was across the room...