AudioShocker

Release the black balloons from the ceiling! Culturology is 50 posts old! Not over the hill, not by a long shot, but only just under half as old as the Audioshocker podcast. Pretty cool. And how better to celebrate such a landmark than by reminding oneself that the really landmark, as proclaimed not so long ago, is really post 052, not 050. But nevertheless, Culturology perseveres. And how better to celebrate a non-landmark then with usually non-landmark habits, like getting this posted excruciatingly late into the business day for which it is intended. But, as usual, I've got my excuses. I'm a busy person, what can I say?

I spent the bulk of my long weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) at Miami's own Miami Book Fair International, both as an attendee, seeing several amazing readings, as an exhibitor, both hocking promotional micro-issues of the online literary magazine I am editor of, and also hocking issues of the latest anthology that the poetry collective that I am a (founding) member of produces, and as an author, reading in a large group reading with the aforementioned poetry collective. So I've got books on the brain, folks. Three books, none of which I've yet read, caught my attention this weekend:

1. Richard Powers's Generosity: An Enhancement

Powers is a well-known author, but not as well known as he deserves to be. His books also tend to be labeled for the fact that they often deal with science, or with characters who are scientists. But Powers's universe is also populated with artists, writers, and musicians, and all of his characters are fully and humanely created and developed. I heard Powers read from his newest just-out novel, Generosity, and speak a bit about it as well last Wednesday. He read a section which featured a perhaps slightly-in-the-future, bizarro Chicago, in which a very powerful television personality tapes her show. The personality is essentially an Irish-American Oprah, and she is interviewing one of the books protagonists. But what was particularly interesting about the passage was how effectively it captured the machinations of an internationally successful TV talk-show, including the various prompters and monitors and pauses and contrivances and all. As it turns out, I've read all of Powers's novels up to this point, so I'm an easy audience to win over, but I was really very impressed by this reading, and by getting to see Powers read and speak in person. Very open, sincere, all-in with his talk with the audience.

2. Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply

I'd seen Chaon read a "ghost" story back at Carnegie Mellon in I think '03, and had read his book of short stories, Amongst the Missing, which I liked quite a bit, so it was cool to see him read from his new novel. Similar to Powers's novels, Chaon has built his novel by interweaving three stories. At his segment, he read early passages from each of the three strands. I could get no sense of how they are going to weave together, but each portion was strongly written, often with nice bits of wit included into somewhat intense scenes. For some reason, perhaps just that their last names are similar, I've associated Chaon in my mind a bit with Chabon (though also with Adam Haslett, since Chaon and Haslett had successful books of short stories come out around the same time), so I'm excited to see Chaon getting into novel writing. Even before reading this book, I'm hoping that Chaon will continue to produce more.

3. Dennis Kitchen's The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics

It can often be the case that hero-worship in comics is terribly boring and not worth the time, but Kurtzman's legacy deserves some praise. Given Nick and my exploits in trying to get jobs writing for one of Mad's more successful knock-offs, my own interest in Kurtzman should be obvious. But given the massive number of other creators and artists that Kurtzman discovered or helped or influenced is huge. This book seems very cool since it focuses on the art side, where we can see how not just Kurtzman's ideas were influential but also his layouts and the art itself. They also seem to spend a good amount of time with Kurtzman's work on the EC war comics Two-Fisted Tales, and Frontline Combat, which is good since they're landmarks in counter-self-censorship war comics and reveal that not only was Kurtzman a pioneer in satire but crucial in the develop of what action comics have become today as well.

This Week in Not That Guy #2: Christopher McDonald

For a long time, I think that McDonald really was a that guy. But then, at some point, I learned his name, and recognized him from too many things for him to be a bonafide that guy. I would say, up through at least Happy Gilmore, that McDonald was a that guy. Was it his seminal role as Shooter McGavin that turned things around?

Shooter: That Guy or Not?

He was definitely that guy that was the show host in Quiz Show, before Happy Gilmore, and was that guy--Shooter--when he showed up in Dirty Work. So perhaps--and maybe this reveals my predilection for art films--it was his role as Tappy Tibbons in Requiem for a Dream that elevated McDonald into the realm of the no-longer-that-guy. Though these are also more or less the only movies I recognize him from. But we're still only in the year 2000 here; let's see if anything becomes more clear in more recent years...

well, really his CV looks like that of a That Guy. But then, I semi-accidentally ended up watching an episode of "Numb3rs" back on Friday (mainly because McDonald and Lou Diamond Philips were guest stars, so I figured what the hell, why not), and McDonald, to me there, was definitely neither "that guy" nor even "Shooter" but actually McDonald himself. Must've been Requiem for a Dream that did it.