Category: literature

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Monday Morning Montaigne

Sorta undermining my whole Montaigne-project, but then bringing it back home, this passage is from On Pedantry:

In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgment and virtue, little news. Exclaim to our people about a passer-by, “Oh, what a learned man!” and about another, “Oh, what a good man!” They will not fail to turn their eyes and respect toward the first. There should be a third exclamation: “Oh, what blockheads!” We are eager to inquire: “Does he know Greek or Latin? Does he write in verse or in prose?” But whether he has become better or wiser — which would be the main thing — that is left out. We should have asked who is better learned, not who is more learned.

We labor only to fill our memory, and leave the understanding and the conscience empty. Just as birds sometimes go in quest of grain, and carry it in their beak without tasting it to give a beakful to their little ones, so our pedants go pillaging knowledge in books and lodge it only on the end of their lips, in order merely to disgorge it and scatter it to the winds.

It is wonderful how appropriately this folly fits my case. Isn’t it the same thing, what I do in most of this composition? I go about cadging from books here and there the sayings that please me, not to keep them, for I have no storehouses, but to transport them into this one, in which, to tell the truth, they are no more mine than in their original place. We are, I believe, learned only with present knowledge, not with past, any more than with future.

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Politics and the Turkish language

I busted out the Eco Chamber twice last weekend, to get to books I hadn’t previously given the time to. For the flight out to San Diego, I took Ella Minnow Pea off my shelf. I’d picked it up around 4 years ago, but never started it up. It seemed like a charming premise: it’s an epistolary novel about a small, independent nation off the Carolina coast starts banning letters from the alphabet. As the weeks go by, more letters get banned and thus the characters have to become more inventive in their correspondence. You’ll note, for instance, that I managed to go through this entire post without using the third-to-last letter of the alphabet. I think.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the novel was even briefer than its 224 pages, since so many of the letters ended a few lines into a page, and several pages were devoted to brief single sentences. So I finished the book during the flight, along with the in-flight mag and its crossword puzzle. I enjoyed it, but now had to find another for the trip home.

During a Saturday morning shopping expedition — tied into my picking up a prescription for antibiotics to make sure I don’t get any weird infections from the cut in my finger — Amy & I stopped in at a Target. I decided to buy something from the Target book section, which I thought would be an interesting challenge.

I soon learned that it would be an uninteresting challenge. I was at a loss, facing either Barack Obama’s bio, or one of several “creative rewritings” of Pride & Prejudice. Or, of course, something by Dan Brown.

Then I noticed a face-out display with Orhan Pamuk’s new novel, Snow. I thought, “I have two Pamuk novels at home that I’ve never been able to get into, so it’s into the Eco Chamber with you, Orhan!”

I’ve read a little more than half of the book, and find it compelling despite itself, which is (I think) Pamuk’s intent. The novel is overwhelmingly political, taking place in a border city that’s torn between political Islam and military rule, and Pamuk’s choice of epigrams shows that he knows how weighed-down a novel can become by politicking. He manages to avoid it by (I think) representing the flaws in the various points of view, not championing anyone, and not giving credence to the “artists must be apolitical and free!” vibe that undercuts a lot of novels that attempt to deal with their time.

I’ll let you know if it holds up, but at this point it’s a knockout winner over the leaden, dreadful novel it reminded me of on the surface: Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello.

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Monday Morning Montaigne

From Various Outcomes of the Same Plan:

Now I say that not only in medicine but in many more certain arts Fortune has a large part. Poetic sallies, which transport their author and ravish him out of himself, why shall we not attribute them to his good luck? He himself confesses that they surpass his ability and strength, and acknowledges that they come from something other than himself and that he does not have them at all in his power, any more than orators say they have in theirs those extraordinary impulses and agitations that push them beyond their plan. It is the same thing with painting: sometimes there escape from the painter’s hand touches so surpassing his conception and his knowledge as to arouse his wonder and astonishment. But Fortune shows still more evidently the part she has in all these works by the graces and beauties that are found in them, not only without the workman’s intention, but even without his knowledge. An able reader often discovers in other men’s writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects.

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Quitters Never Win

Last week, I received the dissolution papers for my old publishing company. I waited quite a while before filing to dissolve it. While some of you might suspect it was because I harbored a romantic desire to get back into publishing, it was actually because I was scared that I would file something wrong. Essentially, it was like that dream where you’re taking the SATs but you haven’t prepared, and you’re naked, and you’re talking to a snake who’s wearing a vest, and —

But I’ve said too much.

Anyway, the company is officially dissolved, which leaves me very relieved. There were a variety of reasons I failed (or, “was not capable of succeeding”) in the literary publishing business, some of which I beat myself up over, and others of which were utterly beyond my control.

Which brings me to Dave Eggers. Last I week, I found a neat article in Forbes about Eggers’ work as a publisher. Now I didn’t get far when I tried reading Eggers’ blockbuster book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and I made some pretty savage remarks about the book to various friends and acquaintances, but maybe I’ve just got an aesthetic blind spot.

Or maybe not. It’s not germane to this rant. Regardless of the book’s merits, it sold a bazillion copies and made a bunch of money for the author. Admirably, he put some of it into worthwhile causes, including learning centers for kids. He’s also continued his quirky literary mag, McSweeney’s, and built up an independent publishing company.

Since it’s in Forbes, the article discusses some of the business practices of Eggers as a publisher. In particular, it explores how his early failure with Might led to a different business model with McSweeney’s:

When he began, Eggers was no stranger to traditional publishing. He’d co-founded the influential but short-lived Gen-X magazine Might in the mid-1990s, which taught him that dependence on advertising is a road to frustration. With Might, he says, it “seemed crazy that an advertiser–or a 22-year-old media planner–could determine whether or not your magazine had merit, how many pages you could print or whether (in the end) you existed at all.”

Might folded in 1997, and Eggers embarked on a different path a year later. With McSweeney’s, Eggers chose to start a much smaller publication, with a modest distribution and a very high cover price (between $22 and $24 per issue). He managed to win a readership without having to play the advertising game.

“We were determined to rely only on the support of readers. We grew only in relation to what readers would support,” Eggers says.

We learn that McSweeney’s grew among independent bookstores before reaching major distribution:

McSweeney’s Quarterly–which now prints 20,000 copies an issue and remains the flagship money-maker for the company–is now distributed by San Francisco-based Publishers Group West, which puts McSweeney’s products on the shelves of online and chain retailers as well as independents.

And this is where I pulled up short. I scrolled back to the top of the article and checked the dateline: Dec. 1, 2006. Unfortunately, this article about the growth of McSweeney’s Publishing came out four weeks before its distributor, Publishers Group West, went bankrupt.

According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s was left $600,000 in the hole by this turn of events, most of that cash intended for a Sudanese refugee charity (Eggers pledged the proceeds of his new book to that cause: like I said, he seems like a good guy).

There are bailout plans from at least two other distributors, promising between 70% and 85% of the money owed to the publishers who choose to participate. But the very fact that this occurred, and was so unforeseen, makes a major point about independent publishing.

See, the article was structured such that Eggers learns from the pitfalls of his first publishing venture, and decides to follow a different path. He gets away from the advertiser-supported world in favor of reader-supported projects. Eventually, this model is so successful that the company seeks larger distribution to reach more readers. Then there are years of success, followed by the cataclysm of PGW’s collapse.

The worst part about this is, McSweeney’s Publishing did nothing wrong. It was a success story, financially and artistically/aesthetically (so I’m told), but the very framework of the business meant that it had to trust a distributor to help promote books to buyers, physically get them to stores, collect payments, handle returns, and a million other things. There’s no way that a publisher can do all that on the scale that Eggers’ company had grown.

Now, please don’t read this as sour grapes on my part. I’m not happy about PGW’s collapse, nor about the hit that McSweeney’s took. I’m hoping that the company bounces back, finds a new, stable distributor, and continues fighting the good fight.

What you should read this as is a lament for how difficult it is to successfully publish books, especially for an independent company. On the tiny scale I operated on, it was silly to keep going (and thanks for never bothering to pay me, Small Press Distributors, you lousy sonsabitches), but it’s a shame when the publishers with a real presence can get struck down by circumstances so utterly out of their control.

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Blame it on the rain

The Colts win left me at 2-9 for this year’s Playoff “Challenge”, while Ron Rosenbaum went 6-5. More importantly, I’m out $50 after the Bears failed to cover. Of course, devoted readers of this site — seek help! — may recall such remarks as

Rex Grossman looks like the most confused quarterback in the NFL, with literally no ability to grasp when the pocket is collapsing.

and

Rex Grossman is a terrible QB.

Unfortunately, I had to stick with Chicago +7 to have any chance at salvaging some pride in this playoff debacle, and the city of big shoulders let me down. On the plus side, their wind chill is about 20 degrees worse than the wind chill here in NJ right now. And maybe I’ll stop getting a bazillion google hits from people trying to find out if Rex Grossman is Jewish. (He’s not.)

At least our little party went well. Amy’s red beans and rice and her king cake bestowed a nice Mardi Gras vibe, and our company was top-notch. We didn’t take any pictures during the festivities, but Amy will soon post some shots of the food preparation and display. I even broke out my framed copy of the Super Bowl Shuffle 12-inch record, just to get some Chicago mojo going.

Oh, well. Time to get ready to fail at my March Madness picks. . .

(P.S.: Many thanks to Ron Rosenbaum for being a good sport and participating in the NFL Playoff Challenge. Pick up his new book, The Shakespeare Wars, and/or his tremendous collection of writing, The Secret Parts of Fortune. You’ll thank me.)

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V for Vitamin

Those of you who pretend to know me through this blog pretend to know that I’m a creature of habit. When something works out for me, I stick with it till it fails. Then I kick it to the curb. When I break from this practice, I tend to get screwed.

Last week week, for example, I switched from Breathe Right brand nose strips over to the private label brand at CVS. I should’ve known something was wrong when one of the instructions was “line up the bump” and another was “hold in place for 20 seconds.”

By morning, the strip was half off one side of my nose, and removing it left a nasty mark on the bridge (where I lined up the bump). So it’s back to the same old.

Now, if you’ve made it through this far, then you know there’s gonna be some sorta payoff. In this instance, it involves fluorescent urine and potential liver and CNS damage.

See, the same day I bought the cheap-ass nose strips, I also needed to restock on my multivitamin. I had just finished a 200-count bottle of One-A-Day Men’s Health. It’s only in the past year or two that I got into the habit of taking vitamins. I can’t detect any effect, but it’s possible I’d be a deteriorated wreck by now if I hadn’t been taking the darn things.

Amy & I checked out the local health food store, since she’d never been inside. I took a look at the vitamins while she was checking out some rice. The clerk directed me to Ultra II dailies from Nature’s Plus. It cost $25 for 60 tablets, which took me aback. But I bought them, figuring “at that price, they must be good.”

That was Saturday. Wednesday evening, Amy asked how the new vitamins were. Besides expensive.

I said, “They seem fine. I gotta say, though, I had no idea my body could produce a yellow that fluorescent.” She chalked it up to the B-complex in the vitamins. I thought maybe it was polonium-210, and that the FSB was ready to silence Virtual Memories for good, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Unless she was in on it. . .

Okay, so maybe I was getting a little paranoid.

I figured that having fluorescent urine would make for a fine party gimmick, since we do have that Super Bowl bash next Sunday, but Amy decided to give my new vitamins an extra look.

After a few minutes on the laptop, and she announced, “You need to stop taking those.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, it says here that the upper daily limit of vitamin A is 10,000 IU. And your new vitamin has 25,000 IU.”

“. . . Wow! There’s a Teratology Society? Is that like the Monster Society of Evil?”

“Sigh.”

I think I’d be worried if Amy did get some of my references.

We checked out a few more reputable sources, plus wikipedia, and determined that it was probably best if I don’t risk liver collapse, osteoporosis, CNS damage and, most important, hair loss (gotta have your priorities straight). So it’s back to the same old.

(Just wondering: if they’re pseudotumors, that means they’re not as bad as regular tumors, right?)

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Monday Morning Montaigne

Montaigne, on prognostications:

True, there remain among us some means of divination by the stars, by spirits, bodily dreams, and the like — a notable example of the frenzied curiosity of our nature, which wastes its time anticipating future things, as if it did not have enough to do digesting the present.

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2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 3

I had bigger balls in the first half of this decade. Back then, I found it easy to call literary people with no entree beyond, “I’m a small press publisher and I’d like to talk to you about a project I’m working on.”

That opening got me into phone conversations with Greil Marcus, Harold Bloom, Guy Davenport, Ron Rosenbaum, William Gass, Jason Epstein and Grant Morrison (okay, just with his answering machine). Even before those days, I found it pretty easy to pick up a phone and try to reach William Gaddis and David Gates (the latter of whom I’ve enjoyed occasional conversation with for more than a decade).

But I haven’t called a writer out of the blue in a few years, mainly because I’m not a publisher any longer. The other reason is that there aren’t many contemporary writers I’m interested in talking to. So yesterday morning, when I remembered that I promised you readers that I’d try to get NFL playoff predictions from author and law professor Thane Rosenbaum, I was a little nervous.

It only took me 30 seconds to get Thane’s contact info, so I called him shortly before lunch yesterday and left him an absurd pitch on his voice-mail: “Hi, Professor Rosenbaum! My name’s Gil Roth. I’m a . . . writer? and I’m in the midst of, um, an NFL playoff challenge with an acquaintance of yours, Ron Rosenbaum. Last week, Ron decided to guess what Philip Roth’s football predictions would be, so I wrote that I’d try to get your predictions for this week’s games, in order to up the ante.”

I rambled on for a bit, figured that I sounded like a lunatic, especially when I remarked on how I could understand if he’s not able to call back after sundown, since I wasn’t sure if he’s an observant Jew or an inobservant one like me.

You can imagine my surprise when he actually called back. He thought the idea sounded like a hoot, and thought it’d be funny to tweak his buddy Ron with a set of alternate-Rosenbaum picks. At first, I wasn’t sure if Thane was actually a football fan, which would’ve made this challenge even more challenging. Fortunately, when I mentioned Ron’s comment about how Philip Roth would bet on the Bears because of the Chicago connection and because of QB Rex Grossman’s name, Thane remarked, “But Rex Grossman isn’t Jewish. I think their kicker, Robbie Gould is Jewish. So was that kick returner for the Eagles: Bloom, I think his name was. Or was he on the Broncos this year?”

So we talked Jews-in-sports for a few minutes, and he promised to get me his Conference Championship Weekend predictions this morning. So, without further ado, here are the playoff picks of Thane Rosenbaum, author of The Golems of Gotham, John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law at Fordham Law School, and all-around good sport for helping me out on this week’s playoff challenge:

Yes, I am the Thane Rosenbaum whose football picks have been solicited by my new friend, Gil Roth, in his ongoing friendly-wager, cyber-gridiron contest with my longtime friend, Ron Rosenbaum.

First, a disclaimer: Ron and I are not related, even though we share a surname, a lecture agent, and similar literary interests and worldly obsessions, and many people have confused us over the years as being the same writer. I am desperately in need of a brother and I would very much like it to be him, but he has, over the years, made it clear that friends is the closest we are ever going to get, so I am not choosing sides in this contest between Gil and Ron. The picks are my own and the chips will fall wherever they must regardless of how it alters the odds or tips the scale to one side or the other. Besides, the odds of me being dragged into this weekly, gentlemanly sport were unlikely from the outset.

Second, one must admire Gil Roth for having displayed such a dramatic flair for one-upsmanship, since Ron Rosenbaum merely sought to guess Philp Roth’s picks, whereas Gil took the initiative of actually producing Thane Rosenbaum (a la Marshall Macluhan, in Annie Hall) and having him actually post picks of his own. Such resourcefulness from such an enterprising blogger should change the point spread right there. (Note to Ron, which he already knows, by the way: Philip Roth is notoriously reclusive, and his sport is baseball, not football, as any Swede Lvov fan well knows, and I am a far easier and less remote blog poster than Philip Roth, so you inadvertently raised the stakes on Gil and gave him an opening which he easily filled by getting a low-rent writer such as myself. You would have had an easier time guessing the football picks of Hyman Roth, from The Godfather II.)

Back to the picks!

BEARS by 2.5 points over Saints. The Saints are this year’s destiny team. Home field advantage won’t help the Bears when facing a team that was homeless last year and has all the spiritual and metaphorical benefit behind them. I say take the 2.5 points and the Saints and expect last year’s Heisman winner to earn the pose and explode in the Super Bowl.

COLTS by 3 points over Patriots. Brady is the best money player in the NFL, and my best friend, Danny Goldhagen, and his son, are huge Patriot fans. I can’t, out of filial loyalty (you see, Ron?), not take the Pats and accept the points and expect to see the Patriots play in their fourth Super Bowl in six years. Peyton Manning is a great player, and his head is better than his brother’s, I’m afraid, but the Patriots will these things to happen, and anyone who has read my writings know that I am a big fan of the spiritual universe.

Well, I gotta say that Thane’s picks mirror mine this week. I was worried that Ron would post his picks before I do, since my only chance of tying up this contest is to go 3-0 the rest of the way, while Ron goes 0-3. But I decided not to be unsportsmanlike and just pick against him. Instead, I’m going with my heart (Geaux, Saints!) and my brain (“Never pick against Belichick.”) by picking both road-dogs in the conference championships.

In a perfect world, the Saints will win in a rout, while the Pats will cover but lose, setting the stage for Peyton Manning to get defeated by his hometown team in Superbowl XLI.

And many thanks to Thane for coming through on this week’s picks! I’m hoping we can entice him to offer up his Superbowl predictions in two weeks, so make with the flattery, dear readers!