two cents on three dollars of Hollywood comedy

For the sake of full disclosure–it seems critical that you and Chris Bosh’s 2-week unreality camera crew have public access to my life although it bears no relevance to his impending border crossing pour le saison chaud de menage a trois in sunny Florida:

For the first time in months we rented movies, and I chose from our local shiny, red 1-dollar DVD drop box, the anti-tourist Daniel Kalder’s fav It’s Complicated along with a second choice, Youth In Revolt (being out of the film loop and choosing only by the cover displays no less!).

Yes, DK’s points (see his kind words at http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/10/28/trailer-review-meryl-streep-and-alec-baldwin-star-in-its-complicated/) are well taken (as well as commenter Sophie’s and I do pity the crew, yes I do, who had to stand around beautiful Santa Barbara and point equipment at Alec Baldwin), and yet long removed from this world of Hollywood comedy, we watched It’s C. first and laughed a lot! It was kind of like cathartic, just what the doctor ordered laughter.

But then again, we don’t have TV, stereo, or much else in a very quiet small town in the summer. There was one early scene where I feared the worst, the 50ish women gathering to nibble and discuss their lives and dismal prospects for love (I very much prefer my own 40ish clandestine nibbling here, alone with pretzels or ice cream or my own questionable choices in literature or chances for all kinds of things).

Youth in Revolt was more intriguing I suppose, and I’ve always been a sucker for pseudo-Indy teen-angst films, and then the topper is a week later, at this point positively addicted to the cinema of Hollywood comedy, I chose Four Christmases.

Four Christmases was okay--no doubt better than what 4 Kwanzas or 4 Channukahs would have been and I can't remember if I saw Four Weddings and a Funeral or not--but I did begin to get a bit burnt out on Hollywood comedies.


If there is a shared message of all three films, it seems to be that love is still possible in an age of plentiful and easy-access divorce and that divorce can be a funny topic too, not some taboo, "oh, that’s so awful, what those poor children or poor mother had to go through," etc. And also, that parents can be superfreaky, strange, and scary people (alas, another comedy we fall into, parenting). Then, I realized that perhaps my favorite comedy, The Daytrippers, has the same themes. And most of Woody Allen as well. And all of situation-comedy TV? I suppose.

Will I succumb once more to the DVD drop box and rent that Demi Moore–Parker Posey interlude with “Tears” in the title? Wouldn’t Chris Bosh’s camera crew like to know? No? Oh. Well, I suppose renting from the drop box is less exhausting than winning the NBA title.

And on a related note, please Phil Jackson (or Doc Rivers or Doug Collins or any other basketball coach who helps Oprah and amazon and borders sell books), when assigning literature to next season's team, consider selecting the film novelization of Fight for Your Long Day. Originally written for screen--as a Philip Seymour Hoffman "plot mule" and product-placement bonanza--this novel of urban angst and travail would make fine reading for any of the national basketball association's high school graduates.

TGIF, keep fighting the good fight, and keep Fight[-ing] for Your Long Day.

Peace.

(And yes, I almost wrote the whole thing without writing the word Lebron.)

Scout

"Scout" found a home in Romania but can only be read offline:

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/2010/05/editorial-event.html

All the other unpublished stories say things are not the same.

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