ten dollars and eight cents

Ah, yes, once more the online transaction beckons:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fight-for-Your-Long-Day/Alex-Kudera/e/9780984510504/?itm=1&USRI=kudera

I should point out that this fine paperback product can be had for 9.87 less than all the other products pitched online and off for 19.95. In addition to being read like a book, it makes a fine paperweight or rainproofing for the soggier days. If you tear it out and roll it up, then, why yes, you can smoke it or enhance your arrangements with paper flowers. More soon on how Fight for Your Long Day can even protect you from IEDs and stray bullets.

That's all, folks.

Don Riggs redux redux

My first online interview, with writer-teacher Don Riggs, is now available in full in Romanian:

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-contemporary-horizon-magazine.html

It first appeared--why yes, in English!--at USK last March:

http://kudera.blogspot.com/2009/03/don-riggs-on-writers-and-writing.html

From Chapel Hill to East Falls to Bucharest, the legend of Riggs grows.

readings for 2010

OK, I'm posting the books I've read in 2010. Remember that these are the titles I would want any stranger browsing the internet to see that I've read; they may or may not be the titles I've actually finished this year. For that list, send legal currency that is not too difficult to exchange. Thanks.

The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
Running Away (Fuir) by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
Post Office by Charles Bukowski (first time I've read a novel by Bukowski)
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte (exaggerated claim: best ever loser-guy suburban angst available in paperback)
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (I finally finish my first new Pynchon novel since Vineland; liked the idea of Doc Sportello but it was hard to turn pages at times)
Women by Charles Bukowski
Factotum by Charles Bukowski (in progress)
Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist by Daniel Kalder (in progress and it's great!)
These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich (a rather touching play about exploited workers in the 1920s and '30s)

seen cyrus duffleman?

I was so busy in April that I failed to notice that my main character escaped from my novel, Fight for Your Long Day. On April 1, no joke, I told him he should sit and stay and self-promote as shamelessly as the rest of the Atticus staff (http://atticusbooks.net/), but in fact, he has chosen a new direction.

And now I can't find him!

He won't friend me, but please do me a favor and see if he is open to your request. On http://facebook.com/, friend "Cyrus Duffleman," and if possible pass along the message that his author wants him back. Preferably at the same weight and medical history as when he ditched me five weeks ago.

The book is due out in September and still needs a good thrashing (final edits), so thanks in advance for anything you can do. I hope to avoid desperate measures although I am inquiring about the legality of civilian tasers and bear traps.

Sincerely,
Alex Kudera

may one

I celebrated May Day by working for thirty minutes, reading Romanian literature in translation for twenty, and then losing track of time.

kafka to eagles

Breaking News: Kafka drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, following Schulz and other European scribblers who played pro ball in Philly.

"to each his own p---"

Jean-Philippe Toussaint was kind enough to respond to these questions, and yet I must confess that his partner in crime, or at least literary translation, John Lambert, may have gotten in the best one liner. The semester is over save for finals; the Endgame hyperlink approaches.

If only Sammy B. had broadband access... I'm so happy we can retire this week.

lish edited hannah?

Am I the only one waiting for the bomb to drop? Or pathetic enough to consider the posthumous possibility that someone will unearth "The Truth" that Gordon Lish heavily edited and rewrote entire paragraphs of Barry Hannah's fiction???

Could it be possible? Ridiculous, right?

Before you threaten this blog with its own mad does of Lishterine, consider the possible:

Barry Hannah was a lonely, mopey plotless writer narrating tales of dysfuctional lesbians who never left the living room with TVs always tuned to the saddest reruns. And then, bam! Lish discovers him and turns his stories into booze-soaked, Southern tragicomedy! Gerry Roth becomes Geronimo Rex!

Gordon Lish, who seemingly has done a hell of a lot for contemporary literature, has wound up playing the role of the sulky devil in regard to the Raymond Carver collection. Somehow, Lish has become the "baddie" who corrupted the true Carver or imprisoned him to unfair but non-negotiable edits or "Jew behind the curtained" him or something.

And now Poor Barry Hannah has been dead and gone for a month, but his editor Gordon Lish is still lurking, most likely "discovering" new writers and eating red meat on rye. Somehow, Lish has gotten a bad rap in all this and yet based on the evidence, he has had a hand in as much contemporary American fiction as anyone else. Maybe we should start revering him as a mystical straw who has stirred so many fine drinks?

OK, forget the cocktails. But I recently read that Sam Lipsyte's journey from sad nobody to literary discovery to "comic genius" included an invitation to join the prestigious Lish writing seminar. I have no information on any "girlie action," "play," or "bi-curious and known drunk" Lipsyte received as a direct result of such membership, but it does seem as if once again--as with Carver, Hannah, Richard Ford, and others--we can thank El Gordo for anything we know about Lipsyte's fiction (input The Ask at a virtual front near you).

So in closing, an open invitation to Lipsyte: dish us the real deal on Lish--all the dirt or other brown dust worth mentioning. Or at least tell us what we should know about this guy...

...thanks, Sam.

And blessed Barry, yes, rest in peace and leave a light on for the rest of us.
For more on Lish's history of helping literature, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Lish is a place to start.

multilingual horizons

If you would like to support literature and translation in Romania or if you would like to read my first short story published in Europe (in both English and Romanian), please follow this link:

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/2010/03/important_1553.html

The biggyshor@gmail.com paypal does work, and I would email the editor Dr. Daniel at drgdaniel@yahoo.com if you use it. (He also considers submissions of poetry, art, and fiction.) It should bring you a Romanian literary journal with English and Romanian versions of all texts. In addition, there is a separate Spanish-Romanian insert as well as a couple pieces appearing in an original language other than Romanian or English as well as these two. Dr. Daniel Daniel, the journal's editor, is also involved with the new National Literature Museum in Romania, and Contemporary Horizon is a media partner of the University of Bucharest.

It's really quite groovy. Indeed.

April 3

So far, in the Southeast, April's cruelty has come only in the form of heat and humidity. I suspect we will persevere.

A few other random thoughts fluttered in and away--more Eliot, tax forms, car repairs, drought and rain--but I'll let them rest for the time being.

Happy holidays.