ostler _ One who attends to horses at an inn; a stable hand or groom.
– A Sea of Words : A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O’Brian’s Seafaring Tales
Monthly Archives: May 2011
I know most of my fan-base are literature fans, but there are plenty of lit fans who are also fans of Hollywood (when films are done right) and pop music.
There are some great stories in music that, I believe, deserve unrolling onto the silver screen. In that spirit, here are five songs that should be made into films. Sure, some of these songs have back-stories of their own, but they also stand as great jumping-off points for movies.
Hardboiled author Mickey Spillane, (quoted by Edwin McDowell in the 27 Dec 1981 New York Times Book Review) dismissing the idea that his main character’s drinking habits carried any symbolism:
“Mike Hammer drinks beer, not cognac, because I can’t spell cognac.”
I am thinking about changing my name to John Xoxo, so I will always feel loved when people write to me, no matter what the subject.
While we’re talking about author self-promotion (ok, we weren’t, but the other day I was) let me link you up to an interesting piece in the New Statesman about Harper Lee and, by extension, other wildly successful authors who were less than ideal self-promoters.
The Statesman writer cites a Mirror article claiming that J D Salinger, whom I reffed in my piece as the very model of the reclusive author, wrote 15 novels after his famed Catcher in the Rye, but stashed them away in a safe. Why? In 1974, Salinger expressed his feeling that publicity was a “terrible invasion of my privacy.”
That feeling of having his privacy invaded might have cost the literary world 15 works by a master writer. An interesting insight into the author self-promotion debate.
I am hesitant to post a link to this next story, due to the arcane and disparate online access policies at media sites like the Wall Street Journal, but China Miéville is such an intriguing writer that I would feel it a dereliction of duty not to bring up this recent WSJ piece on him. I hope it’s available to the public when you click to it.
As WSJ says of Miéville, he “leapfrogs between literary categories, playing with the narrative conventions of police procedurals, Westerns, sea adventures, urban fantasy and even romance.” Also add to that list “classic noir” and “intergalactic space romp.” Eight of Miéville’s books are now being repackaged together with covers designed to brand them as literary, despite their so-called “genre” content.
This, I believe, is a fantastic step forward from the absurd literary-genre apartheid that has afflicted literature since the middle of the 20th Century. I am also glad that WSJ chose to use the neutral term “literary category,” so double kudos to them on that.
nub 1. to hang by the neck until dead. “Nub” is a cant word for “neck.” [cant, late 1600s] Synonyms and related terms: CARNIFICATE, CLIMB THE STALK, DANCE UPON NOTHING, DANGLE, DIE IN ONE’S SHOES, GO UP A LADDER TO BED, IN DEADLY SUSPENSE, JERK TO JESUS, KICK THE CLOUDS, LEAP FROM THE LEAFLESS, NECK, PATIBULATE, SCRAG, SHAKE A CLOTH IN THE WIND, STRETCH, TOP, TOTTER, TRINE, TUCK, TWIST.
– Slang and Euphemism
On this day in 1527, Rome was invaded by the Imperial Landsknechts.
Their primary weapon: it is very difficult to warn people about an enemy you can’t pronounce.
When it comes to author self-promotion, you might expect me to be on the “pro” side of the argument. After all, I have this website all squared up, I have my Facebook author page, and I have my Hootsuite-enabled Twitter account.
Heck, if Myspace hadn’t become the internet equivalent of a whorehouse in a war zone, I would promote myself there, too.
However, let me play Devil’s Advocate — or, more accurately, Devil’s Strategic Process Analyst — by discussing two things I wonder about whenever the issue of author self-promotion is brought up.