We’re discussing a few stories tomorrow from Stuart Dybek‘s collection The Coast of Chicago. I admire “The Woman Who Fainted” and “Pet Milk” (4:27) and I was happy to find this reading for my Lit 50 students. So important to hear the author’s voice.
I was lucky enough to hear him read years back at Oregon State. I remember he mentioned the stories began as failed poems. And a few years back a former student gifted me a nice hard bound version that was also signed.
Ran across this game at Marbles the Brain Store in Chicago and wondering if this might work in my Lit 150 intro to creative writing class.
James Thurber short story adaptation?
This looks interesting:
Calvin and Hobbes documentary looks good.
Happen to be reading through The Man With the Golden Arm this summer. Now news of Algren documentary. I’m looking forward to it.
Planning a lecture on Fight Club and its dystopian themes. Spending time watching this 2003 Palahniuk documentary/video thing called Postcards from the Future:
Preparing for Lit 150 and discussion of Amy Hempel’s stories “The Cemetary Where Al Jolson is Buried” and “The Harvest”. This morning I’m reviewing Tom Spanbauer’s notes on literary minimalism:
Notes on Literary minimalism—(exemplified by Mark Richard, Amy Hempel and Chuck Palahniuk)
Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Minimalist authors eschew adverbs and prefer allowing context to dictate meaning. Readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story, to “choose sides” based on oblique hints and innuendo, rather than reacting to directions from the author. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional.
Instead of grand narratives we see briefer and more economical scenes and seemingly insignificant moments that “add up to more than the sum of their parts.”
I’m looking forward to reading this award winning book by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Great interview here: “An award like this isn’t ever just for the person that won it; it’s for the community who raised that writer.”
On Tuesday I had the fortune of attending a private screening of the inspirational documentary film I am a Visitor in Your World . The film was about Rebecca Babcock, a young writer and blogger diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 25. The film was a poignant account of her life and struggles and Rebecca’s story was so affecting. I liked the idea that her poetry from her blog was used as voiceover.
After the film there was a Q and A regarding the editing, cinematography and the music used in the film as well as commentary from Rebecca’s mother, Mary. The DVD is currently available at the filmmaker’s website.
Note to self: Writers make choices.
Spending time with Nick Flynn’s book and also watching some clips from the adaptation: “We all need to create the story that will make sense of our lives. Make sense of our daily tasks.”
I think I’m m
ost surprised at the Bart/cupcakes clip. And I guess I should be specific and say these are Stanley Kubrick A Clockwork Orange references and not Burgess references. I’m finding the film and the book to be so far from one another in many subtle ways.
Today in Lit 111 we’re discussing The Simpsons and A Clockwork Orange. What dark thoughts exist in the young and innocent mind:
In preparation for A Clockwork Orange discussions in Lit 111, today we talked about the satirical aspects of postmodernism:
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