Here's hoping...

The older and crankier he got, the more convinced he was that in the end all writers get pretty much what’s coming to them: the destructive praise and flattery, the killing attention and appreciation.

(New Yorker)

Pour mon camarade

How did they command such deference - English teachers? Compared to the men who taught physics or biology, what did they really know of the world? It seemed to me, and not only to me, that they knew exactly what was most worth knowing. Unlike our math and science teachers, who modestly stuck to their subjects, they tended to be polymaths. Adept as they were at dissection, they would never leave a poem or a novel strewn about in pieces like some butchered frog reeking of formaldehyde. They'd stitch it back together with history and psychology, philosophy, religion, and even, on occasion, science. Without pandering to your presumed desire to identify with the hero of a story, they made you feel that what mattered to the writer had consequence for you, too.

- Tobias Wolff, Old School

'****ed' are the meek

Any idea of freedom must include the freedom to be poor.

- Rana Dasgupta

Dr Ragab, I presume?

Interview with Robert Twigger, polymath and novelist.

Thought for the day

"I'm of two minds - whether to skilfully weave my personal history into the warp and woof of a subtle plot structure that evolves through the play and counterplay of mimetic imagery to reveal my narrative point of view as an integral part of this literary work, or whether to just dump my life story into your lap out of sheer lack of writing ability."

- P.J. O'Rourke, Unpaid Bills

Creative destruction

"It is every aspect of my life. It is destroying every relationship in my life. I am having an affair with it. I am obsessed with it 24 hours a day... I am constantly in a terror about failing, like all artists."

- Matt Weiner, creator [as in, writer] of the incomparably brilliant Mad Men.

The problem, nutshelled

"We spent almost all our time together, partly working but mostly sitting around, lying around, driving around, and talking constantly, all day and all night, as only very young people can, about everything that can be imagined, which is to say about nothing that can be recalled."

- P.J. O'Rourke, Age and Guile

Lord of the Land

"Hunter was my friend and neighbour, the man who never paid his rent, broke up my marriage, and taught my children to smoke dope."

- George Stranahan, landlord of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

The Amnesiac Review recommends...

Robert Twigger and his new novel, Dr Ragab's Universal Language.

Thought for the day

"[I]n a single morning I would go through the emotions ascribable to Wellington at Waterloo. I lived in a world of inscrutable hostiles and inalienable friends and supporters."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up.

WTF?

Westport, Conn.

BOOKSTORES are getting shipments of a significantly changed edition of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpiece, “A Moveable Feast,” first published posthumously by Scribner in 1964. This new edition, also published by Scribner, has been extensively reworked by a grandson who doesn’t like what the original said about his grandmother, Hemingway’s second wife.

The grandson has removed several sections of the book’s final chapter and replaced them with other writing of Hemingway’s that the grandson feels paints his grandma in a more sympathetic light. Ten other chapters that roused the grandson’s displeasure have been relegated to an appendix, thereby, according to the grandson, creating “a truer representation of the book my grandfather intended to publish.”

(NYT)

(Thanks to Maggie)

Brilliant stuff

from Geoff Dyer:

"Conceived as a distraction, it immediately took on the distracted character of that from which it was intended to be a distraction, namely myself."

- from Page 1 (God help me!) of Out of Sheer Rage.

Not even my own

The Duckworth Lewis Method

... is now the name of a band.

Their eponymous album will be out on Monday, July 6th. Until then, you can listen to the whole lot here - free and legaleasy.

Damned with great praise

"I see him as a genius writer, but an amateur human being."

- William McKeen on Hunter S Thompson

Glory Days

"I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it/but I probably will."

Thought for the day

"It stuck in my mind that he was Woody, and everybody else I could see around me was just everybody else."

- Bob Dylan, on seeing Woody Guthrie for the first time as a ten-year-old.

Out of the public toilet

and into the Fire.

Thought for the day

I get up in the evening
and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
even if we're just dancing in the dark

Message keeps getting clearer
radio's on and I'm moving 'round the place
I check my look in the mirror
I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face
Man I ain't getting nowhere
I'm just living in a dump like this
There's something happening somewhere
baby I just know that there is

You can't start a fire
you can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
even if we're just dancing in the dark

You sit around getting older
there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me
I'll shake this world off my shoulders
come on baby this laugh's on me

Stay on the streets of this town
and they'll be carving you up alright
They say you gotta stay hungry
hey baby I'm just about starving tonight
I'm dying for some action
I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book
I need a love reaction
come on now baby gimme just one look

You can't start a fire sitting 'round crying over a broken heart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark
You can't start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark

- Bruce Springsteen, Dancing in the Dark

Meanwhile, my Glasto week so far: Had ticket, didn't go. Fell to my knees watching the Dead Weather's secret gig on my girlfriend's TV. Sprung to my feet again when I saw the crowds and remembered my enochlophobia [fear of racist politicians]. Caught the Fleet Foxes in Hyde Park yesterday, one hundred yards from the comfort of my girlfriend's bathroom. Heard Neil Young from her front room. Had a Glasto sympathy-in-exile party (in W1) last night. Got slammed and almost licked the big screen watching the Boss. Endless breathless texts from my sister. Going to see Springsteen in the park today. Got ants in my pants.

P.S. Good man.

Atlas shrugged (in that typically Gallic fashion)

Interviewer: "How long did it take you to get over losing Wimbledon [to Rafa Nadal] last year?"

Federer: "... 2 hours."