http://www.eugenelim.com eugene lim's reading diary Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:51:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en yesterday i saw PLATFORM. which, with PICKPOCKET, make up the stunning first two thirds of the "hometown trilogy" by jia zhangke. for some reason, maybe because he's found relatively secure funding in his latest films (and not had to work outside china's constrained studio system), these first two are, for ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/03/08/platformbyjiazhangke/ cover of FEED by m.t. anderson ereaders already are, or will soon enough become, visually engaging; they are in many ways already more convenient than their analog counterparts -- from their hypertexuality to their capacity for instant distribution. however -- other than the more apparent rebuttals (worse reading resolutions, less hardiness ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/02/14/on-ebooks-a-short-rant-from-our-regularly-scheduled-program/ shortly after his great, brutal novel RED THE FIEND came out, i wrote what amounted to a fan letter to gilbert sorrentino, whom i'd had as a teacher. he was kind and always responded to my (shamefully hopeful) letters. in this response, he wrote that if his work had any ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/02/10/the-abyss-of-human-illusion-by-gilbert-sorrentino/ i've a story in an anthology put out by mudluscious press, collecting its first year of excellent chapbooks. includes ken baumann, shane jones, jimmy chen, brandi wells, blake butler, nick antosca, sam pink, james chapman, colin bassett, michael kimball, jac jemc, kim chinquee, kim parko, norman lock, randall brown, brian ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/01/15/mlp-first-year-anthology/ I've a bit in the new Sleepingfish -- edited by Derek White & Gary Lutz -- along with Ryan Call, Anna DeForest, Sasha Fletcher, Nina Shope, Rachel May, David McLendon, The Brothers Goat, Lito Elio Porto, Adam Weinstein, Diane Williams, Dennis Cooper, Elliott Stevens, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Alec Niedenthal, Amelia ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/01/07/sleepingfish-8/ i haven't read stephen elliot (whose memoir-ish latest is the much-praised THE ADDERALL DIARIES) though i just might after stumbling on this essay about why he writes. in it, he discusses MFA programs, publishing, process, and the economics of being a writer: I realized that to continue as a writer I ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/01/06/writingeconomics/ one definition of a novel, say, is that which honestly tries to organize the chaos of thought into a semi-satisfactory, semi-consistent semantic machine of about eighty-thousand words. this definition might help us understand a book that's mainly digressive in structure or one that fails to draw a moral conclusion. only the ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2010/01/03/the-colorist-by-susan-daitch/ BEST OF 2009 This book, ostensibly about a group of women missing one of their own, is delightfully strange, both in the way the plot progresses and the way Ruocco plays with language... congratulations to joanna ruocco for penning this stunning debut. on only its fourth outing, a nice feather too ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2009/12/29/time-out-new-york-calls-the-mothering-coven-one-of-the-best-of-2009/ on the radio yesterday i heard someone quote debussy: At a time like ours, in which mechanical skill has attained unsuspected perfection, the most famous works may be heard as easily as one may drink a glass of beer... Should we not fear this domestication of sound, this magic that anyone ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2009/12/29/dr-nookindle-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb/ not that you should care about the motivations of your humble correspondent, but breaking once the vow to myself never to blog about movies seems to have opened the floodgates as i now feel a sick need to write about arnaud desplechin. just re-watched his enormous KINGS AND QUEEN -- ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2009/12/23/kings-and-queen-by-desplechin/