A new generation of writers who never lived in the Soviet Union demands our attention, says the Russian Booker prize-winner Olga Slavnikova

Russia has a new generation of prose writers who never lived in the Soviet Union – or were very young when it collapsed. They are new people and entirely new writers. They are free of the Soviet legacy in all senses. They have no nostalgia and do not resonate to the sort of art that attempts to turn everything Soviet into vintage chic. And unlike many older writers, they are not fighting the Soviet past.

These new writers are simply living their lives and simply writing about them. That "simply" is of great value and importance. Only this newest generation of Russian prose writers has at last been able to see the present moment in its entirety. One may say without exaggeration that this is the most ingenuous and honest literature in Russia since 1917, the year of the deplorable October coup.

These authors and their young readers live in a system of multiple uncertainties. The problems that life poses often have no solution. To solve what is insoluble, to do what is undoable: that is the demand made of a young person today by unpredictable Russian reality. Young people have no algorithms for building their lives and careers. No one can promise that a particular effort will lead to a particular result. Just the opposite may be true. There are no guarantees, but anything is possible. It is this system of uncertainties – that so abruptly replaced the Soviet man's "confidence in tomorrow" – which taxed the parents of these young writers during the turbulent 1990s. But the children have adapted surprisingly well and cannot imagine living according to a plan or knowing their entire life in advance. Theirs is a fundamentally new way of thinking, a new way of seeing the world.

Literature, as a form of activity with no guaranteed results, suits this generation, even though, in Russia, as elsewhere, people are reading fewer and fewer books. Literature as an art form cannot compete with the entertainment industry. In Russia this situation is compounded by the fact that the old (Soviet) system of book distribution has fallen apart, while a new one has yet to be built. Russia's vast expanses are impassable for literature. Large wholesale book dealers send commercial books to the provinces, while new intellectual titles are often confined to Moscow and St Petersburg alone.

Nevertheless, a new generation is declaring itself with increasing confidence in poetry, prose and plays. Literature has not seen such an influx of energy in a long time. Perhaps this change is an anthropological response to the difficult position of culture and literature. This new generation writing in Russian – both the individual writers and the phenomenon as a whole – deserves great attention. In Russia it is known as the Debut generation. This new generation writing in Russian – both the individual writers and the phenomenon as a whole – deserves great attention.

• Olga Slavnikova won the Russian Booker prize with her novel 2017. She is director of the Debut Prize for writers aged 25 or under. This is an edited extract from her introduction to the Debut prize-winning anthology, Squaring the Circle

The spirit of Yuri Gagarin will launch a new breed of Russian writers in London next week

One of the more surreal moments in the literary history of planet Earth will occur on Tuesday when Russian cosmonauts in orbit in the International Space Station will answer questions from visitors to the London Book Fair in Earls Court. The live link-up marks the 50th anniversary of that supreme Soviet moment when Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into outer space, circling the earth for 108 minutes in his Vostok 1 spacecraft.

The reason the event is being celebrated in London is because of a newer expansionary vision: as this year's guest of honour at the book fair, Russia will be introducing 50 writers, critics and academics, many untranslated into English. Among them is Lev Danilkin, one of Moscow's most admired and feared literary critics. He has spent the last few months racing to complete a book about the man many regard as Russia's one great untarnished hero, in time for the anniversary. In keeping with the spirit of the post-Soviet times his account of Gagarin's life is collaged from a huge range of sources, both contemporary and more recent, from Russia and abroad.

One hilarious section recounts Gagarin's visit to London three months after the flight, as part of triumphal Soviet diplomacy. "Thousands lined the 14-mile route into London for a look at the world's first cosmonaut ... Standing in an open silver Rolls-Royce with a specially issued licence plate 'YG-1', Yuri waved and grinned," reported Time Magazine. The huffy Miami Times was more concerned with the "curvaceous blonde singer" Yana Guard, who claimed Gagarin had appropriated her car licence number for his visit. The London Times, meanwhile, was delighted to find a touch of human fallibility in the hero of space, who appeared to have cut himself shaving.

Whether the latest visit will turn out to be triumphal remains to be seen. Sadly for the nation of Tolstoy, Gorky and Gogol, Russian literature has been in a long eclipse, with many of its most familiar writers living in exile. In Moscow a few weeks ago, a delegation of British journalists was harangued by a leading radical publisher about the need for state subsidy of translation.

One sign that at least some in power are taking literature seriously comes in the form of the Debut prize, financed by a foundation set up by one of the richest members of the Duma, Andrei Skoch. A father of eight, who puts his literary philanthropy down to an interest in how his children think and a lack of interest in football, Skoch will be in London for the book fair to promote the latest Debut prize anthology, Squaring the Circle.

It is the culmination of a project of awe-inspiring ambition. Each year since it was founded in 2000, up to 50,000 writers have entered the competition, open to anyone 25 or under living in the former Soviet Union. The prize director is Olga Slavnikova, whose novel 2017 – a Russian Booker winner – is published in the UK this spring. In her introduction she spells out the challenges facing the new generation. "These authors never lived in the Soviet Union – or were very young when it collapsed. They have no nostalgia and do not resonate to the sort of art that attempts to turn everything Soviet into vintage chic. And unlike ... older writers, they are not fighting the Soviet past."

Whether this has left them better or worse off is a matter of debate. Slavnikova admits that the Debut generation "lives in a system of multiple uncertainties". The Soviet system of book distribution has fallen apart, and people are reading fewer books. It's a climate ripe for dystopian fantasy – and so it's perhaps not surprising that many of the most interesting young writers are turning to the tropes of science fiction, while regarding Gagarin as the spirit of the modern age.

The importance to Russia of helping this new generation to take the international stage was made clear at a recent dinner in Moscow's equivalent of the Groucho club jointly hosted by the newly arrived head of the British Council and the deputy head of Russia's Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications. There was much polite sparring about which nation had behaved worse in the long history of animosity between the two nations. "But it is to Europe that we must look," said Vladimir Grigoriev. The argument will doubtless continue next week.

Hellooooooo!!!

There's a rumbling of animatronic tom-toms afoot on the interweb that is related to steampunk books - which includes Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore, of course, because of Jackie's automaton - and it MUST be true because her book is listed in the SLJ article on Steampunk that came out on December 1st (even though I didn't really think of it as steampunk myself – then again, according to a list located by my local librarian in charge of the graphic novel collections for kids, The Invention of Hugo Cabret was steampunk, even though I and the three librarians who discussed the list all considered it historical fiction, really, if you had to classify it; but I digress).

I did a linky post about the SLJ article on Monday as part of my contribution to the Alternate History/Steampunk initiative being organized by Colleen Mondor. But it occurred to me that what I'd really truly like to do is a steampunk conversation involving some of my writerly friends who trend that way, so I contacted Tiffany Trent, Lisa Mantchev and Jaclyn Dolamore to see if they might want to play. And they did – lucky me!

I sent along two or three questions to get us started, and started keeping track of the conversation, which has been pieced together from emails starting . . . NOW:

1. What attracted you to steampunk elements in the first place? Is it the clockwork, the corsets, the awesome inventions?

Jackie Dolamore: I don't really think of my work as steampunk, but as fantasy that draws from the real world and its history, and I'm attracted to that uncanny element in history. One of my favorite museums is the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, FL, which is housed in one of Henry Flagler's grand old hotels and is full of every sort of strange thing from the past, including a few automata, a wonderful collection of mechanical musical instruments, weird collections of things, a mummy, creepy paintings, overdramatic furniture, an electrical machine that was supposed to do something medical or entertaining, I can't remember which . . .

Anyway, it's fascinating but it makes my hair stand a bit on end at the same time, and I like to convey that in a book if I can. I think automatons are one of the most fascinating things from the past, and it's easy for me to imagine myself in the 18th century seeing this technology and feeling full of wonder at its possibility and horror at its soulless humanity . . . Am I being too wordy yet? Anyway, Magic Under Glass was driven by fascination by automata. I'm similarly mesmerized by zeppelins, so I used one in my short story for the Corsets and Clockwork anthology, but I feel like I didn't have enough space to really explore it so I'm hoping I can squeeze one in my next WIP. . .

Lisa Mantchev: I am fully prepared to admit the first thing that attracted me to steampunk was the costuming! What's not to love about cobbling together thrift store finds with a silk corset and shiny brass bits? And then there's my addiction to antique shopping and treasure hunting. My house is already full of bits (more art nouveau than Victoriana, perhaps) but I love owning things with a history, and the dirtier the discovery, the better. Plus "researching steampunk" sounds like a way more legitimate way of spending the day than "surfing eBay for watch bits."

Tiffany Trent: Unlike most, my attraction to steampunk comes from a totally different angle. In tandem with all that was going on in the Industrial Revolution, the Victorian naturalists were revolutionizing our understanding of the world around us. They were also collecting things to the point of extinction. (Meet the world's first hoarders, everyone!) I'm utterly fascinated by the Victorian approach to nature and the things they tended to ignore (racism, classism, etc., etc.) while hunting down beetles in South America. Of course, the awesome clothes and the spirit of invention don't exactly drive me away, though.

Kelly Fineman: (For Lisa) Is the Théâtre Illuminata set in a steampunk alternative universe? There are clockwork horses and a steam train, but I wasn't entirely certain whether you conceived of it as steampunk, precisely, though I'm pretty sure I read a short story of yours that was decidedly steampunk.

Lisa Mantchev: I think the theater series rubbed up against a steampunk costume and come away wearing some of the shiny bits. I do have a novella collaboration with James A. Grant that appeared in Weird Tales Magazine (reprinted in Steampunk Reloaded, edited by the Vandermeers) that is Honest To Goodness Steampunk, though.

Kelly Fineman: I have a follow-up for all of y'all, which is this: How much steampunkishness is required for something be steampunk? If we accept Lisa's proposition that there needs to be steam technology and some sort of industrial revolution (and I think that is a valid presupposition), then how many other elements are required?

Lisa Mantchev: As for "how much steampunkishness is required?" I'd say that's up to both the writer and the reader, Results May Vary. And where I said "Industrial revolution" before, maybe I should have just said "revolution." Anarchy of any kind puts the -punk in steampunk.


Jackie Dolamore: The "how much steampunk is required" discussion . . . well, I'm a poor one for that because I don't think I really write true steampunk. I was told my short story needed more science . . . and I definitely don't think I've got the punk part. I think I'm a wee bit more on the "fantasy of manners" side than the "anything-punk" side.

Kelly Fineman: I love the term "fantasy of manners", which (interestingly enough) is sometimes called "mannerpunk" in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. I suppose it's hard to be focused on hierarchical society and still manage to be a punk, yes?

Tiffany Trent: I must secretly (or not-so-secretly) admit that I'm not sure I'm writing true steampunk with these books, either. But Victoriannaturalistpunk is a bit of a mouthful.


2. To your way of thinking, is there a particular time period associated with steampunk?

Tiffany Trent: Tricksy question. It depends on one's focus, I think. Culturally, we could probably look at Chinese steampunk quite early on--they had invented printing presses and movable type long before Gutenberg. And we could look at the Baroque era with its amazing automatons and observatories. Most people think of the Victorian era, but honestly my steampunk is a mashup of Baroque and Victoriana because I'm weird like that.

Jackie Dolamore: I'm sure everyone thinks of Victorians first, but I agree with Tiffany that it could cover a lot more ground. Would love to see more Asian steampunk!! My aforementioned next WIP could probably be tagged as 1920s German steampunk. Where there's technology I suppose there could be steampunk? And if the trend continues I'm sure we'll see more and more variety.

Lisa Mantchev: Because I view steampunk as alternate history, I think it can function in any time period as long as there is steam-driven technology and some sort of industrial revolution occurring. I think we see a lot of Victorian-era England-ish gas lamp fantasies because of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells (and bustle skirts! and top hats!)

Tiffany Trent: Darwin inspires me, of course. Before I started The Unnaturalists, I started a book about Darwin. (Which I still intend to finish). I loved that there was so much fighting about very nature of our being, about using taxonomy and cladistics to try and describe our world. The Linnaean view of life (prevalent at the time) is very different than the one we hold now, thanks to Darwin.

My steampunk is set in Fairyland, basically. It's a "what-if-the-Victorian-naturalists-got-stuck-in-Fairyland?" book. What would they do if they woke up with dragons outside their windows? I tend to think they would do just what they did with nature in this world--shoot it, stuff it, study it, collect lots of it, and maybe find other uses for it. But I liked using the Baroque trappings to indicate an even deeper rigidity and self-righteousness in the culture. Thus, the mix. ;) Haven't gotten to read a lot of multicultural steampunk, but I hear rumors of it being in the works from various quarters. I see lots of it in art—James Ng's art is what I'm thinking of with Chinese steampunk.

3. Who are your favorite steampunk authors?

Tiffany Trent: Well . . . my fellow conspirators here, of course. Cherie Priest. Caitlin Kittredge's YA steampunk Iron Thorn will be out in Feb. and is awesome. I love Philip Reeve, but am not sure he considers himself steampunk or would much appreciate the appellation. I can name more, if interested.

Jackie Dolamore: I loved Kenneth Oppel's trilogy, especially Skybreaker, because the idea of a lost airship floating around forever with frozen dead people and amazing natural treasures on it is exactly that kind of hair-raising awesome I mentioned . . . And the Vögelein comic. Jane Irwin also did an online serial about The Turk, the same automaton that inspired me in the final draft of Magic Under Glass.

As a reader, I don't like my books to be too gadgety or deviate too much from what feels like real history to me (purely personal opinion) but I'm more forgiving with graphic novels because you can have so much fun with the visuals, so there's also Kaja and Phil Foglio's Girl Genius. I've only tracked down the first two volumes, but that's a lot of fun. I'm sure I'll be adding more to the list because there's so much coming out now!

Lisa Mantchev: I just did a panel on steampunk YA, and we also included:

Incarceron and Sapphique by Catherine Fisher
The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare
Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade
Worldshaker by Richard Harland

Side note: [still Lisa] the more we try to create a list of Must Haves, the narrower the field gets. I'd rather err on the side of "if it's shiny, invite it to the party!"

Tiffany Trent: Agreed re: categorizing the genre. Therein lies the path to stagnation.



Kelly Fineman: LOVE that side note. And I agree wholeheartedly. Then again, I'm not a "purist", and I rather expect there are some longtime spec fic writers who are gnashing their teeth and calling shenanigans on some of the books being labelled as steampunk these days.


Lisa Mantchev: And then there are the longtime spec fic writers who are calling shenanigans on the entire genre, an attitude I find tiresome and elitist.



Jackie Dolamore: I guess I'm not too much into branding or stifling anything, really. I mean, that's why I love YA--because there is so much more diversity in books published, etc., so I certainly don't want to suppress the evolution of subgenres. (We're talking about YA and adult books here, but still... I just want to see creativity and diversity everywhere!) Even if I think 90% of a genre is crap I still hate seeing people knock it because, oh, the 10% is worth it. I mean, some steampunk is just too goggles and gadgets for me, but that's just me. I can see why others might find it appealing, so I think going around knocking it is just obnoxious. (Although I didn't follow the discussion . . . I don't follow the spec fic world.) That goes for anything: paranormal YA, dystopian . . . whatever.

Kelly Fineman: MAJOR thanks to Jackie, Lisa and Tiffany for taking part in a conversation that I found so very interesting, for making me think, and for giving me lists of authors to put on my TBR list (which was already long enough, thank you, but I'm always glad to lengthen it).

From Jay-Z's "Decoded" to the recently released “The Anthology of Rap”  
Since hip hop's founding it has been fighting the rap that it is not culture. Having already knocked down the assumption that it was a passing fad that wouldn't last by 25 years later dominating the charts and becoming America's pop music, hip hop obviously still feels it has something to prove to academia and the purveyors of high art. If anybody can be a cultural ambassador, it's Jay-Z.  He's more palatable than the temperamental Kanye who struggles with fighting the system while wanting to be lauded by the system (hip hop's ultimate paradox)  and also struggles with the words to express himself when not rhyming. Jay's also more palatable than a Talib Kweli and definitely an Immortal Technique who continue to use hip hop as a form of revolution. It's interesting that Jay-Z finds himself in the esteem and embraced by the institutions that his little brother Kanye wants so badly to see himself. Unlike Ye, I honestly don't think Jay set to be in this position, but I am glad to see him accepting the responsibility. Anybody who is a hip hop fan already understands it as poetry. See more on the language of hip hop from the purveyor of high culture The New Yorker:

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I met Leslie Wheeler when we were both first time novelists published by Larcom Press, a small, New England publisher. Since then, Leslie, an award-winning author of books about American history and biographies, has gone on to write two more murder mysteries in her "living history" series. She's also written numerous short stories published in four anthologies by Level Best Books and has become a contributing editor. Her latest short story will appear in the forthcoming anthology, Thin Ice.

What’s new on the local design front, from stores to collections to zines.

OPENINGS

1. Restoration Hardware’s Gallery Store
The mainstream design store that was right up there with Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn just got a major makeover. Expect rustic, antique-inspired wares—brickmaker’s tables, industrial tool chests, and domed burlap-backed chairs as living room decor—in a muted palette of brown, ivory, and beige that’s anything but boring.
188 Henry Adams St., 415-865-0407, restorationhardware.com 

2. Revel Spa
Inspired by the spirit of Hanoi, the high design at this newly opened Inner Sunset spa reflects the rich history and culture of Vietnam. Daydream of far-off places as your stress melts away with services such as the luxurious Revel Well Being package, which includes a mani-pedi, deep-cleansing facial, hot stone massage, and herbal soak.
1315 Seventh Ave., 415-566-8999, revelspa.com 

3. Big Daddy’s Antiques Your favorite Alameda flea market vendor finally has a permanent home in the city. The 13,000 square-foot showroom in SF’s design district boasts an eclectic mix of European, Asian, rustic, and reclaimed industrial pieces. Find everything from an Art Deco zebra print loveseat to a reclaimed tree root chandelier. 1550 17th St., 415 621-6800, bdantiques.com

4. Aldea Niños
Mission design shop Aldea Home just welcomed an addition to its family. The newly opened Aldea Niños is a fantasyland for little ones—puzzles, stuffed animals, and books alongside all the blankets, bags, and baby carriers that urban moms and dads crave.
1017 Valencia St., 415-874-9520, aldeaninos.com

COLLECTIONS

Big Names at Roche Bobois + DWR If you love Jean Paul Gaultier’s outlandish fashions, check out his new line of furniture for Roche Bobois, especially his take on Roche’s Mah Jong sofa, which in Gaultier’s hands has become a palette of nautical stripes, florals and black-and-white Parisian-ness. Meanwhile, over at local outfit DWR, Danish designer Niels Otto Møller, who’s known for his teak and rosewood furniture, joins the ranks of Eames and Saarinen. With distinctive arms and a hand-woven seat made in old craft tradition, Møller’s Armchair 55 (left) is the perfect way to dress a room in mid-century style. 701 Eighth St., 415-626-8613, roche-bobois.com; 455 Jackson St., 415-837-3940, dwr.com

PARTY

The biggest design party in town is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month. At DIFFA’s (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) two-day fundraising bash at the SF Design Center, catering meets interior art, complete with the most visionary dinner-table installations you’ve ever laid eyes on.
Nov. 17–18; 101 Henry Adams St., 415-490-5865, diffasf.org

MAGAZINES

Anthology Magazine Just when you thought print was dying, local design writers Anh-Minh Le and Meg Mateo Ilasco have published the first issue of a quarterly shelter and lifestyle magazine that approaches interiors in a narrative style. anthologymag.com

 

Rue Magazine Move over, Apartment Therapy. The new, sophisticated online magazine Rue features picture-perfect homes, design tips, and entertaining inspiration in the style of a glossy. With SF cofounder and executive editor Anne Sage on board, Rue has West Coast sensibility written all over it. ruemag.com

The staying power of music's most important family

In his obituary for his father in 1754, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach wrote: "Johann Sebastian Bach belongs to a family whose love and aptitude for music seems like a gift accorded by Nature in common to each of its members." One suspects that Carl was attempting to establish and claim his own career here from his family's manifest destiny, but nonetheless the claim stands. There is little doubt that the Bachs are, as Christoph Wolff puts it in his Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (1991), "the most important musical family of all time".

Their importance derives not only from their many achievements, but also from their sheer staying power. The Bachs were unique not merely because a few of them were so great, but because so many of them were at least so good for so long. The only musical family ever to rival the Bachs in terms of their Duracell-like duration are probably the Couperins of France, though it is probably safe to say that more people could hum Bach's Toccata and Fugue – Da-da-dum, da-da-da-da-daa-dum – than could whistle François Couperin's Le Parnasse. (Then again, we know that Couperin did at least compose his own Parnasse – there is some doubt about the attribution of the Toccata.)

The era of the great musical Bachs lasted roughly from the 16th century until the 19th. The mystery of this extraordinarily long family tradition of musical brilliance illustrates the equally extraordinarily long tradition of the mystery of what one might call hereditary art. How can one family excel in one field for so long? Karl Geiringer, in his vivid account of the family, The Bach Family: Seven Generations of Creative Genius (1954), puts their continued success down to their resilience, fortitude and fighting spirit. It probably also helped that many of the Bach men married above their station, and so made their way up socially from mere beer-hall entertainers to bona fide musicians.

Wolff – the greatest of Bach scholars – provides the most detailed analysis of the rise and fall of the family genius. In his various accounts, the Bachs emerge largely due to a system of institutional patronage that eventually disappeared in the late-18th century, and partly because of an ongoing family emphasis on what Wolff calls "craftsmanship in practical musical activities". The Bachs taught each other to play, and would often get together for family recitals and singalongs. "In composition and keyboard-playing I have never had any tutor other than my father," recalled Carl Philipp Emanuel. Johann Sebastian took his duties and responsibilities as paterfamilias particularly seriously, compiling not only an anthology of family compositions, Das Alt-Bachisches Archiv, but also a complete family history, Ursprung der musicalisch-Bachischen Familie.

In his history, Johann Sebastian traces the significant lives of no fewer than 53 Bachs. For the uninitiated, the long list of biographies can seem bewildering. For Bach family beginners, and for the purposes of distinguishing who's who and what's what on Radio 3, it is probably enough to bear in mind just four sets of initials: JS (Johann Sebastian), and his sons CPE (Carl Philipp Emanuel), JC (Johann Christian) and JCF (Johann Christoph Friedrich). Bach is the brand; the initials represent subsidiaries.

Geiringer, concluding his book on the Bachs, writes: "The chronicler investigating the history of the Bach family feels very much like a mountain climber. Slowly he ascends to a high plateau affording some enchanting views; proceeding across it he comes to a tower of the most generous proportions ... Henceforth he continues along the wide, pleasant expanse of the plateau which discloses ever new attractions, and only after a long time he descends on a steep trail into the valley." The latterday Bach lowlands consist largely of PDQ Bach, a fictional Bach invented by the composer Peter Schickele. PDQ composes work on the kazoo.

 

SILENCE LIES (Julie Hivon, Canada) 

The Montreal World Film Festival, which is at the midway point of its celebration of world cinema, also sees part of its mission as a showcase for new Canadian film talents to shine for both local audiences and for visiting professional guests from all over the globe. While Canada’s film industry is rather strong, it still must compete with the overwhelming marketing machine of its powerful neighbor to the south. Fighting for screens and for attention, Canadian filmmakers have a powerful ally with this Festival and the exposure that its spotlight can offer.

 

The Festival demonstrated its commitment to local filmmakers by giving its coveted Opening Night slot to Quebec director Louis Belanger for the world premiere of ROUTE 132, a metaphysical road movie that will open commercially later this month. The film is competing for the Grand Prix des Ameriques, the Festival’s highest honor, along with fellow Canadian film SILENCE LIES, a psychological drama set in Montreal’s bohemian art world, written and directed by Julie Hivon.

 

In the First Films World Competition, a section devoted to debuts by up-and-coming film talent, the US/Canadian co-production THE NEIGHBOR (Hamseyeh), written and directed by Iranian-born Naghmeh Shirkhan, tells the emotional tale of an Iranian woman ex-pat living in Vancouver who must reconcile her traditions with the demands of her new country.  In the non-competitive Focus On World Cinema section, I HEART REGINA is a multi-part anthology film by fourteen different Canadian director who offer short form valentines to the small (and rather unexplored) Canadian city. Other films in this section include I WAS ONCE TOLD, a three-sided love story set in an Arab immigrant community, directed by Aliaa Khachouk; and MARY, a necrophiliac romance directed by Ukranian-born Audrey Petrusha.

 

 

BLACK HANDS (Tetchena Bellange, Canada) 

 

Canada has a strong tradition of documentary filmmaking, and this year’s Festival features some very strong non-fiction works by Canadian documentarists. In BLACK HANDS, local filmmaker Tetchena Bellange, recreates the sensational trial of a black slave in 1734 who was accused of setting fire that led to the destruction of a large part of the young city of Montreal. In CHILDREN OF SOLDIERS, director Claire Corriveau focuses on the tight-knit community of an army base where the families of men and women fighting in Afghanistan must wait for their loved ones’ return. Other Canadian documentaries in the Documentaries of the World section include CORPUS, director Connie Diletti’s exploration of the “death industry” of morgues and afterlife communities; TURNING 32 revisits a group of people from different countries that were originally interview at age 16, to reveal how their earlier selves have evolved; THE HIDDEN FACE OF SUICIDE enters the world of loved ones who have lost relatives to suicide, as directed by therapist-turned-filmmaker Yehudit Silverman; MONTREAL, 31 FRAGMENTS OF URBANITY is a visual poem to the Festival’s host city as rendered by director Jean Tessier;  THE FALL OF WOMENLAND offers a portrait of a minority community in China where women  rule the roost; and FUNERAL SEASON brings viewers into the heart of the mystical and colorful funeral celebrations in Cameroon.

 

Canadian filmmakers are also showcased in the special programs devoted to INIS, the National Institute of Image and Sound, and a student film competition that offers a wide-ranging group of new works from some of Canada’s most prestigious film schools. From short to long, fiction to non-fiction, Montreal to Vancouver, Canadian films are given the spotlight at this year’s Montreal World Film Festival.

 Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor 

If you really want to learn a foreign language, go to that country and immerse yourself in it – and that’s exactly what journalist Lauren Kessler has done in exploring the alien terrain of her middle-school daughter Lizzie – she’s gone to her country. The Author’s Note at the front of the book tells us that her daughter’s name has remained the same but those of her friends have been changed for the sake of privacy – however none of the events or conversations have been changed except through interpretation (which I know must sometimes occur, as we are not robots!). There were no creations or composites of characters.

After a “magical decade of peace, love and understanding”with her mother (which the mother thoroughly enjoyed!), Lizzie was on the brink of teen-age-hood, wearing favorite clothes for days on end and “She turns her head and gives me a look. There may be nothing quite so withering as the look an almost teenaged daughter can give her mother. What is it, exactly, that look? Exasperation, annoyance, disgust? And that’s on a good day. Sometimes it’s pure, unadulterated antipathy. She sighs dramatically and mutters something under her breath. I don’t want to know what she says.” Her daughter also stands before her and “I know this posture. I stood in front of my own mother like this countless times. The stance communicates two of the sacred tenets of teen girlhood: boredom and defiance.” And Lauren is shocked to find herself and her 12-yr.-old daughter in a state of “mutual hostility.”

I’ve read that, psychologically-speaking, to attain individuation a daughter must first cut the (usually very strong) bond with her mother and then with her father, so that she can go on to replace those loyalties with a boyfriend and later marriage. Defiance on the teen girl’s part, often supposedly over nothing at all (like “eating fish for dinner”) is normal. “There is no relationship quite as primal, as vitally important, or as deeply conflicted. Mother-daughter identities are enmeshed and interwoven, yet need to be individual and distinct. There is no other relationship that veers so sharply between intimacy and distance, between love and hate.” Yet the mother, newly knocked down from her “mother-goddess” and protector pedestal, is at a loss for both words and appropriate emotions (even if she’s acted in a rebellious manner towards her own mother years before). Lauren’s Lizzie is particularly important, being the third and last of her children and her only daughter.

The author also fears that she and her daughter could become cold and distant, as she and her own mother had been for thirty years until her mother was in the middle of Altzheimer’s and returned to be taken care of by Lauren — and that she would also lose the only other female in her nuclear family, the one she’d doted on for so many years before this. So Lauren decides “I give myself the next eighteen months — from the middle of seventh grade, where Lizzie is now, to the beginning of high school, where she will be fully launched into her teen years. I will make this work, or go down fighting.” She decides that her fighting weapons will be reading and research and actual investigation, which she has always used before this to navigate through her world.

It seems fitting that the author chose this struggle to chronicle in My Teenage Werewolf, since it may easily be the most important conflict of her life, and within it might occur the seeds of a resolution of what went on with her own mother. Lauren reads voluminously about teen psychology, new discoveries about teen brains, teen discipline and mood swings and the new societal stresses (with heightened expectations) of the current generation. She talks with other mothers, physical doctors, teen therapists and specialists, and compares notes. No one could do more thorough research – and one woman, Kinlen, tells her, “I think teenage girls are here to help us heal the wounds of our own past,” and that mothers should not be control freaks but “a loving mentor.” And then Lauren begins to do on-site research at Lizzie’s school.

My Teenage Werewolf (despite its humorous and affectionate but perhaps misleading title) is a bold book, because how many mothers (even if they are writers) would do this kind of field research? It matters to Lauren that she and Lizzie be close, and if you look at the photo of them on the book’s back inside jacket cover, smiling at each other, you would think that they are. But what is close, for someone who hasn’t known closeness with her own mother? (A new discovery?) In the Acknowledgements section Lauren first writes: “This book would not have been possible – or, possibly, necessary – without Lizzie, my charming, alarming, disarming, mercurial, and totally miraculous daughter. My great debt is to her for agreeing to this project; for letting me into her life at a time when many girls want as little to do with their mothers as possible….” and, obviously, in this collaboration Lauren did become close to Lizzie, as close as one can be without crossing the identity line. (I don’t know of ANY daughters who would have allowed their mothers to come to school with them!) Girlfriends, divorced kids, boys, kids with problems – Lizzie seems to learn more from them than from her classes, which, so unlike her mother’s in the seventh grade, include topics like “Gender stereotypes” and “Socially responsible science.” Because indeed that is the difference between home and public schooling – socialization (school, where we meet people totally unlike our families).

Going where not many have gone before, with a lantern in her hand seeking out the truth about a crucial turning point in the lives of all girls, Lauren Kessler is to be commended for both her bravery and her intellectuality in a very emotional realm. Mothers, daughters, women of all ages, men – all should read this book to see what it’s REALLY like being a girl, or at least one specific girl in this time and age!

My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, A Daughter, A Journey Through The Thicket Of Adolescence, a book of literary non-fiction by Lauren Kessler published by Viking/Penguin Group, on sale August 9, 2010, 256 pages.

Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky

Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, two Wisconsin Arts Boards Awards, a Co-Ordinating Council of Literary Magazines Writers Award, and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards, including a Commitment to Community Television Award. She is also a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology, the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and has published four books of poetry. She currently reviews movies for http://www.movieroomreviews.com, music for http://www.musicroomreviews.com, and books for http://www.bookroomreviews.com.

Kathryn Hughes charts the rise of the food writer in the past decade, which began with Anthony Bourdain and his irreverent Kitchen Confidential

It is 10 years since Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential rocked into town and gave food writing such a hard slap that it has never quite known which end to stand on ever since. Bourdain's account of life as a professional chef in New York City made midweek service at Les Halles or the Supper Club sound like going on tour with the Rolling Stones circa 1972. In exquisitely dirty prose he described a life of constant high pressure, meaty sweats, singed fingers and drunken all-night come-downs with his crew of semi desperados. Kitchen Confidential blew the idea that there was anything refined or effete about cooking for a living, and gave its entranced readers the kind of insider information that made them feel as though they had been initiated into the coolest gang on earth.

Now, a decade on, Bourdain has published Medium Raw. There have actually been five books in between, but this one is branded as the official follow-up to Kitchen Confidential. There is something identifiably different about it, though. It is not just the tone – Bourdain is in his 50s now, off drugs and a first-time father, so some of the piratical swagger has been burnt off, although the language remains as rococo as ever. It is more that the landscape into which Bourdain is launching his sequel has changed entirely. Whereas Kitchen Confidential was free to slash and burn its way through literary territory that felt relatively static, even stuck, Medium Raw is obliged to pick its way carefully through a richly variegated and much expanded genre. Food writing has evolved its own elaborate ecosystem, bristling with sub-genres, starting points, cross-currents and trip wires. For Bourdain to repeat his trick of 2000 and storm in, steak knives rattling, would not look so much heroic now as simply ignorant.

In Medium Raw, then, Bourdain is obliged to insert himself into a crowded field, carefully feeling out his position and defining himself as much by what he is not as by what he is. He is not, he makes clear, Eric Schlosser or Michael Pollan, two campaigning writers (authors respectively of Fast Food Nation and In Defence of Food) whose recent work he admires but whose handle on the science and politics of agribusiness is a million miles from his own blood-and-guts approach. He is not Marco Pierre White, a man who anticipated his foul-mouthed persona but who nevertheless received Michelin stars that Bourdain could never aspire to (by his own admission, he has never been more than just good enough to work as a line chef in second-tier restaurants). He is not Jamie Oliver, about whose cooking he remains tactfully mute, but whose commitment to doing the "harder thing" he finds admirable. "Most chefs I know, were they where Jamie is on the Success-O-Meter? They'd be holed up at a Four Seasons somewhere, shades drawn, watching four tranny hookers snort cocaine off each other."

But most significant of all is the fact that Bourdain is no longer a professional chef but a professional food writer. Ever since hanging up his whites following the global (he calls it "freaky") success of Kitchen Confidential, he has made his living outside the bloody chamber that is the restaurant kitchen. Thus Medium Raw's subject matter is no longer the discipline of twice-daily service (and yes the religious parallels have been noted), but its ersatz reconstructions in the various foodie television shows on which Bourdain is now a regular celebrity participant. His beefs no longer concern light-fingered colleagues – "don't touch my dick, don't touch my knife" – or his personal hatred of vegetarians, but instead centre on the idiocy of the Food Network or the nullity that is Rachael Ray (a wildly successful middle-of-the-road American TV cook who is mercifully unknown in the UK).

Instead of riffing on a lavish, career-hobbling multi-drug habit, Bourdain's main dilemma now is whether or not he should endorse a rubbish restaurant in return for $40,000 a month. (In the end he decides not to, but not before torturing himself – and us – with the fact that the only thing stopping him is a narcissistic desire to believe himself "above all that"). Medium Raw is not so much written in a minor key – it is as ferociously rude as anything Bourdain has done before – as written at one remove from the thing that made him who and what he is. As Bourdain admits, by letting the world in on his love affair with cooking, he managed to kill the thing he loved the most.

Still, if Bourdain is working out his issues about what it means to be a food writer, plenty of others, Britons as well as Americans, are ready to seize the moment with relish. Indeed, we are currently experiencing a bit of a food writing renaissance, with the genre occupying the kind of sunny uplands that travel writing did 30 years ago. Back in the late 1970s a clutch of young men – Chatwin, Raban, Theroux – reanimated the dusty travelogue with high style, strong narrative presence and a box of tricks to match any literary novelist. For the next 15 years travel writing offered a viable freelance career for writers who couldn't do fiction, weren't academics, but felt themselves to be something more than journalists. Suddenly everyone was at it. Newly expanded Sunday supplements provided outlets for shorter pieces from intellectuals who, while not primarily travel writers, had something they wanted to say about far away places, much as Julian Barnes or Simon Schama today might turn in an elegant piece about food as a kind of holiday from their usual writing selves.

Of course there were plenty of travel writers before Chatwin and his gang pitched up (Thesiger, Stark, Douglas, for starters), just as there were excellent food writers before the current crop. Indeed, postwar Britain was stiff with experts paid to tell other people how and what to eat, the best of whom you can sample in the new Guild of Food Writers anthology, How the British Fell in Love with Food (Simon & Schuster). Marguerite Patten, Robert Carrier, Elizabeths David and Luard, and Jane Grigson all nudged the genre into new and slightly different shapes. David, Luard and Grigson in particular wrote like greedy angels. The late Egon Ronay, meanwhile, bossed Britain's restaurants into aiming higher than they ever thought possible. Even Constance Spry, who should really have gone to hell for inventing coronation chicken in 1953, was basically a force for good. (In Sue Shephard's new biography, The Surprising Life of Constance Spry, published by Macmillan, Spry turns out to have been almost as wild as Bourdain, numbering a cross-dressing lesbian among her many adventures.) Still, what all these writers had at the core of their practice was the production of recipes. No matter how sparkily delivered – and Fanny Cradock could be pretty sparkly – their books and accompanying television programmes were essentially rebranded home ec lessons. No surprise, then, that when food writing started to take off again in the mid-1990s, it was still predicated on the recipe book, albeit glamorously packaged as the River Café Cook Book or Nigella's How to Eat.

Since then the realisation has spread that food writing is about much more than recipes. Instead of being simply the fuel we put in our mouths, it is now understood as our culture's – all cultures' – connective tissue. Rolled up in a feast or a snack, a Sunday roast or a piece of sashimi is a story of history, geography, memory and time just waiting to be unpicked. Writers who might once have worried that showing an interest in food suggested they were either effete gourmandisers or vying for Delia's crown now stake a proud claim for the subject's centrality. And since food is as universal as breath, it is hardly surprising that it has insinuated itself into every aspect of the literary imagination. These days you will find food wherever you look on the bookshelf – in memoir, biography, popular science, academic anthropology, post-colonial studies and, of course, in travel writing. Indeed, so varied now are its domains that very often you have to squint to recognise any family resemblance at all.

One of the most popular of these new foodie forms is memoir. Mostly written by cookery writers as opposed to professional chefs, food memoirs typically season the story of a fractured childhood with recipes from a much-missed home. So in last year's Risotto with Nettles (Chatto & Windus) the doyenne of British-Italian food writers, Anna Del Conte, tells of a prosperous middle-class girlhood in Milan blown apart by the second world war. Trips to fancy restaurants are replaced by foraging in the countryside as young Anna learns to eat (and survive) like a peasant. The book is sprinkled, too, with recipes that chart her unbelieving first few years in postwar England, a culture which still thought that olive oil was something you bought from the chemist to treat earache.

Equally telling, and part of a further sub-genre of British-Asian food memoir, is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's The Settler's Cookbook (Portobello). Here the political journalist plots the multiple dislocations of her Ugandan-Indian family in the 19th and 20th centuries through the foods they inherited, adapted and chowed down in great greedy gulps. The recipes she includes illustrate what academics call "hybridity" and everyone describes as a glorious mash-up: "roast red spicy spuds", "carrot halva" and shepherd's pie with a dash of chilli. Alibhai-Brown has made a point of clinging to her home (wherever that might be) comforts, but for an account of what happens when you attempt to remodel your cultural identity by rejecting its iconic dishes, try Yasmin Hai's zesty The Making of Mr Hai's Daughter (Virago). Growing up in 1970s Wembley, Hai and her schoolfriends, the daughters of middle-class British Pakistanis, try to out-English each other by declaring to whoever is listening that they never eat curry at home.

Ironically, given that memoir is a form predicated on the value of individual experience, many of these books – and there are hundreds published annually in the States that never make it over here – tend over time to take on a generic quality. There's always a granny in them, one who makes daily trips to the market before bustling home to toil over a dish that had been handed down as a precious secret through the maternal line. But what, say, if you had a gran whose idea of nurture was to rummage in the freezer and cut you off a hank of arctic roll before tottering back to watch the wrestling on the telly? For those kind of food memories, the patron saint remains Nigel Slater. In Toast (HarperPerennial), Slater told of a childhood no less busted than that of Del Conte or Alibhai-Brown, but one that took place in 60s Wolverhampton rather than prewar Europe or 50s Uganda. Instead of home-made pasta and fruit lovingly plucked from the orchard, Slater told gleeful stories of Angel Delight and Rolos bought from the Spa shop. Sensing he was on to something (there are, after all, more of us in Britain whose culinary heritage involves Wall's neapolitan ice-cream than homemade bread), Slater followed this up with the brilliant Eating for England, which didn't even pretend to bother with proper chapters, but instead formed itself out of little riffs on those food items which collapse time in a suck, crunch or slurp – Spangles, KitKats and Heinz tomato ketchup.

Given the success of Eating for England, it was perhaps a little cheeky of Simon Majumdar to call his new book Eating for Britain (John Murray). Although the premise is a good one – a road trip to try out the regional specialities of British food undertaken by a writer who is partly British-Asian, the execution is not quite sharp enough to compete with those recent classics of the genre, British Regional Food (Quadrille) by Mark Hix and The Taste of Britain (HarperCollins) by Laura Mason and Catherine Brown, which really know their onions. And, by the way, if it's simply recipes using regional ingredients that you're after, then you still can't beat Nose to Tail Eating (Bloomsbury) from Bourdain's culinary hero, Fergus Henderson. (So passionately does Bourdain feel about Henderson that in Medium Raw he solemnly damns to hell the former New York Magazine food critic Gael Greene for once slightly getting the man's name wrong.)

Memory may seem to be a guarantor of memoir's authenticity, but when pressed into service for a more general kind of food history, it can be become as slippery as an eel. The genre as a whole is shot through with the most damaging nostalgia for a golden age of eating that never quite was. Take Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall's The Ministry of Food: Thrifty Ways to Feed Your Family Today (Hodder & Stoughton), which is predicated on the idea that the food the nation ate during its finest hour in 1939-45 is somehow the food we should all be eating now. The book is a delight of retro graphic design, culled from a trip to the Imperial War Museum's archives. But is anyone, really, about to make their family eat Spam fritters? And while "kidneys in red wine" certainly sounds tastier, was this really what plucky British families set themselves up with before a night of fire-watching in Bethnal Green? More palatable, perhaps, is the decision taken by Waverley Books to reprint The Glasgow Cookery Book. The book, initially published 100 years ago as the textbook of the Glasgow College of Domestic Science, has been updated here for modern use. As a result, it is still possible to discern (and enjoy) its original architecture of pot roast, haggis and dundee cake without feeling as if you are being asked to take part in a slightly out-of-focus historical reconstruction.

Still, the cream of the crop of the recent historical reprints remains The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook (OUP) by Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner. Originally published in 1888, it aimed to do for memsahibs what Mrs Beeton had done for their stay-at-home sisters. Steel and Gardiner were both married to members of the Indian civil service. The book provides, as do all household management guides, a window not on how women lived, but on how they desperately wished that they did. Steel and Gardiner preach a severe counsel of perfection, one that involves teaching your native cook to rustle up fish quenelles and how to treat the bites of "mad, or even doubtful dogs". Their mission, to create a domestic space that was forever Wiltshire, throws a bright light on the larger project of which they were part, that of running the British empire.

All these new titles may suggest that food writing is flourishing. And so, in one sense, it is. But while new and reissued books seem to be doing well in difficult times, the same is not true of newspaper and periodical food journalism. Amid much lamentation, Condé Nast took the decision to close Gourmet magazine last autumn. A bible of the elite American table for the past 70 years, Gourmet was a place for elegant, informed writing about high-end home and restaurant dining. Its editor, Ruth Reichl, formerly restaurant critic of the New York Times, blamed a steep fall-off in advertising revenue. All those car, travel and jewellery companies could no longer justify taking space in a publication that didn't deal directly with their core constituencies (just because you like reading about sushi, it doesn't mean you want to drive to Tokyo wearing diamonds).

While Reichl's analysis is doubtless mostly correct, commentators have been quick to see Gourmet's demise as part of a broader shift. Expertise and even prestige are increasingly passing from paid journalists to food bloggers, who combine a deep and committed knowledge of their subject with almost non-existent start-up costs. In every city in the world (and, perhaps more pertinently, in the countryside, too) you will find an articulate commentariat able to respond nimbly to both local and international conversations about food production and consumption. Their responses and suggestions range from locating the best coffee beans in Sunderland to the effect of the Icelandic volcano dust on the import of cheap veg from Kenya. There are wit and invention here too. The recent Oscar-winning film Julie and Julia is based on a blog written by New Yorker Julie Powell as she attempted to cook her way through Julia Child's classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is hard to see how Powell's quirky project would ever have found page space in an American food magazine, let alone in the hallowed (and strictly rationed) pages of Gourmet.

It is this opening up of what might be called a pro-am space in food writing that likewise accounts for the new buoyancy of smaller and more specialist journals dedicated to the subject. While Gourmet may have floundered under its insatiable need for advertising dollars, periodicals such as Gastronomica in the US and Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC) in the UK are doing wonderfully well. Not exactly academic journals (although Gastronomica is published by the University of California Press), publications such as these provide a space in which original scholarship and elegant writing can meet on equal terms (usually, you have to plump for one or the other). Here you will find an article by a university-based anthropologist trotting companionably alongside a piece by a professional chef, travel journalist or poet. The current issue of PPC, for instance, ponders "Court-bouillon, an early attestation in Anglo-Norman French?" while not being too grand to ask anxiously "Is slurping uncouth?"

It is customary to end an article such as this by pointing out that, despite the exponential increase in books, blogs and journals dedicated to food, we now cook less than we ever did. We are, say the doomsayers, a generation of food voyeurs, porno-dependent quick-fixers who snack on crisps (quite possibly of the "artisanal", hand-crafted kind) while virtual-feasting on pictures of Nigella's store cupboard. Even Bourdain, who usually says the opposite of everyone else, agrees that it is a crying shame that children aren't automatically taught to cook in America's school system. All this is laudable, but slightly misses the point. Food writing is a literary activity, built upon words, sentences and paragraphs rather than flour, butter and eggs. It may refer to the kitchen and the dining room, but it is forged in the library and the study. Someone who reads Hemingway is not assumed to spend their weekends fishing or fighting bulls. A devotion to Agatha Christie does not require you to be either a fiendishly clever murderer or a detective. Even an "armchair traveller" who laps up travelogues by Michael Palin or Jonathan Dimbleby while never stirring further than Southwold is an object of benign contemplation rather than sharp rebuke. And so it must be with food writing. You can appreciate its delicious qualities without feeling the least need to pick up a wooden spoon and have a go yourself. (The recipes included in all those food memoirs are surely for illustrative purposes only.) Food writing is writing full stop, and the best of it does what good writing always does, which is to create an alternative world to the one you currently inhabit. Anything else is gravy.

Medium Raw is published by Bloomsbury (£18.99). To order a copy for £14.99 with free UK p&p; call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846.

U.S. Free speech groups are fighting back after a conservative group successfully lobbied to have an anthology of art and literature by young homosexuals banned from a New Jersey high school.

And here is the first day of spring, the Vernal Equinox. Spooky and I will be observing Ostara on March 22nd, partly because at least one Wiccan website places it on the 22nd this year, and partly out of convenience. Regardless, today is the beginning of Spring. Fuck you, winter. The sun's out, it's warm, and the office window's open.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,068 words on a new story, "Houndwife," for Sirenia Digest #52. It's sort of shaping up to be a very peculiar "sequel" to Lovecraft's "The Hound" (1922). I like it.

Late last night, I learned that The Red Tree has made the "longlist" for the British Fantasy Award, which pleases me. My great thanks to everyone who voted for it. And I do hope to see it make the shortlist. There's an online voting form here. All members of FantasyCon '09 and '10 are eligible to vote.

Also, I've been meaning to mention that Jeff and Ann VanderMeer have asked to reprint "A Redress for Andromeda" (written in June 2000) in a forthcoming weird fiction anthology (title TBA), which pleases me a great deal. "A Redress for Andromeda," you may recall, is the first story in the "Dandridge Cycle."

Yesterday, Spooky had to go to her dentist in Wakefield. On the way home, she stopped by Pow! Science! (at Wakefield Mall) and found the new Carnegie Museum Tylosaurus. Finally, someone has made an accurate mosasaur figure! I should make a post about all the not-so-good mosasaur figurines that have come and gone over the years. Anyway, as it happens, the new Carnegie Tylosaurus was sculpted by a Rhode Island artist, Forest Rogers, who does truly beautiful things. You should have a look. If I were a wealthy beast, I would be buying original pieces of her artwork. Hell, if I were a truly wealthy bear, I'd be hiring her to do a Dancy Flammarion sculpture.

Oh, and Spooky has lowered the price of her latest doll, Cassandra, which you may see here, at Dreaming Squid Dollworks. You know you want to give her a good home.

My head is full of random things today. For example, on Tuesday, just after I'd "fired my therapist" (long story, do not ask), I saw a bumper sticker that read, "Annoy a Liberal: Work Hard and Be Happy." Shit like that just fucking baffles me. I am baffled at the sheer temerity of stupid, sometimes. Also, we filled out the Census Form and sent it back. Is it just me, or has the census been simplified nigh unto utter nonsense? I mean, they're collecting so little data this time. It seems like it was once far more complex. I think it took me about four minutes to answer the questions.

This is getting long, and I should wrap it up. Last night, Shaharrazad, my blood elf warlock, made Level 80. I created Shah on September 27th, 2008, and I only had to give up 37 days, 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 6 seconds of my life (890+ hours) to get her to Level 80. Which is the cap until the next expansion is released, which is not to say there's not still tons of "Wrath of the Lich King" left to play (though I am dubious of the people who claim the game "really only begins at Level 80," because they're the same ones who used to say, the game doesn't begin until Level 70. And does this mean that when the next WoW expansion is released, later this year, the game will suddenly stop and resume only when you reach Level 85? Anyway...Shah leveled sometime just after midnight, fighting Scourge-struck trolls in Zul'Drak.

And now...work!

This is a time of great reckoning. In the sense that we’re are midway through a period in which many very terrific authors are having collected editions appear. Just in the past few months, we’ve seen Ken Irby’s The Intent On, Gerrit Lansing’s Heavenly Tree, Northern Earth, magnificent editions from North Atlantic Books. Stanford’s four-volume Collected Poems of Larry Eigner is available now. But the volume I want to focus on today is Tiresias: The Collected Poems of Leland Hickman, jointly published by Nightboat Books of Callicoon, NY, and Otis Books/Seismicity Editions in Hickman’s home town of Los Angeles. The book is impecca bly edited by Stephen Motika of Poets House, with a preface by Dennis Phillips & an afterword by Bill Mohr.

Leland Hickman might not be familiar to many of the readers of this blog, tho many will have heard of his groundbreaking journal, Temblor, or the journals he worked on before that, Boxcar & Bachy. There were just ten issues of Temblor between 1985 & 1989, but in some important ways the journal changed the world of American poetry. To understand how in retrospect almost requires a thought experiment. One needs to look back at the battles Hickman fought – or at least felt himself fighting – during his days at Bachy & Boxcar. Both were progressive literary journals – LA has always had a scene of poets active in the community but operating quite outside the academy, some portion of which worked at least part time in Hollywood – Lee’s partner, Charles Macaulay, had a career as an actor primarily in television that lasted for over 30 years, culminating with a series of roles in the made-for-TV movies that characterized the final stages of the Perry Mason franchise, led by Lee & Charles’ close friend Raymond Burr. Poets like Charles Bukowski, Wanda Coleman, Harry Northup, Michael Lally, Lewis Mac Adams, Holly Prado, Exene Cervenka, John Doe were just a few of the names that popped up in Bill Mohr’s massive – and still totally valuable – anthology of LA poetry, “Poetry Loves Poetry,” published by Momentum Press in 1985, the same year Hickman started Temblor. While there were some of the 60-plus poets in Mohr’s collection who came from elsewhere (Peter Schjeldahl, David Trinidad) or would head elsewhere (Dennis Cooper, Jed Rasula), what was really remarkable about the LA scene of the 1970s & early ‘80s was the degree that it was its own world, impervious to the outside. The closest thing I can compare it to is the Spicer circle in San Francisco in the ‘50s & ‘60s. Lee once told me that publishing anybody who came from north Santa Barbara or east of San Bernadino invariably got him flack. Spicer used to “forbid” contributors to J from sending copies anywhere east of Berkeley.

Temblor’s argument was simple – that the best poetry in the LA scene was comparable to the best poetry anywhere. The proof simply was to put them side by side. The first issue was not atypical: It began with Ken Irby’s “A Set,” which he published in its entirety, turning the 8.5x11 page sideways to accommodate Irby’s long lines. This was followed by some sonnets by John Clarke, poetry by Gustaf Sobin, Anthony Barnett & Charles Stein before Gerald Burns’ “A Book of Spells II,” which Hickman also ran complete, followed with an essay by Burns, “On Being Done.” That was just the first 50 of the issue’s 134 pages. Some of the others included were Clark Coolidge, Fanny Howe, John Taggart, Clayton Eshleman, Paul Buck, Aron Shurin, Lyn Hejinian, Rosemarie Waldrop, Nate Mackey, Jed Rasula, Pietter Guyotat, Jacqueline Risset & Bernard Noël & Gerrit Lansing. To these, Hickman added Angelinos Amy Gerstler, Dennis Phillips, Martha Lifson & John Thomas.

Temblor has often been characterized as language poetry goes to LA, but in fact its perspective was always much wider. The tenth & final issue has work by Ted Pearson, Clark Coolidge, Bob Perelman & Hank Lazer, as well as any number of poets who might be thought of as fellow travelers (Leslie Scalapino, Stephen Ratcliffe, Bev Dahlen, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Aaron Shurin), but surely that’s not how Tom Clark or David Levi Strauss ever thought of themselves, let alone Barbara Guest, Donald Revell, John Taggart, Rochelle Owens, Duncan McNaughton, Fred Wah, Gerald Burns, or Edmond Jabès. And I haven’t listed even half of the writers included in the issue. What Temblor was, rather aggressively, was the one place in the latter half of the 1980s where all modes of post-avant poetics were represented. With Angelinos (Paul Vangelistie, Dennis Phillips, Doug Messerli) just part of the mix.

The one poet who pointedly never appeared in Temblor – I used to rail at him about this – was Lee Hickman himself. Hickman really felt that his role as editor precluded him from doing so as a matter of honor. He also may have felt that he could not get the distance he needed from his own writing in order to be a competent editor of it, as least from this perspective. The result was that Temblor made a difference for just about every poet who appeared in its pages, save for the one who did all the heavy lifting. (In that tenth issue, for example, is some work by Joseph Lease, perhaps the first poetry of his that I’d ever seen.)

Hickman’s own poetry was, as Tiresias makes evident, grounded in a post-Olsonian sense of Projectivism. This is particularly interesting from my vantage point – not only because this is the side of the New American poetry I often feel closest to – since there is no evidence I know of that Hickman himself ever studied with Olson, nor with any of Olson’s direct students, and personal transmission was an important factor in the influence of all the modes of New American poetry. Further, while there several gay men at Black Mountain (Robert Duncan, Michael Rumaker, John Wieners, Jonathan Williams), who could, when called upon, write profoundly of their homosexuality (“Willingly I’ll say there’s been a great marriage”), Hickman’s own work places him much closer to that generation of poets who came of age after the Stonewall riots of 1969, when Lee was already 35. In this sense, Hickman’s perhaps closest as a poet to Aaron Shurin (himself a student of Duncan & of Denise Levertov, tho 20+ years younger) or even David Melnick, writers for whom the gay liberation movement was a profound cleavage in both American & personal history. Yet neither Temblor nor its forerunners was ever Manroot, Paul Mariah’s journal of gay lib poetics (which had an important role in keeping the work of Jack Spicer alive in the decade after his death).

It might be easy, I think, to misread the title piece of Tiresias, Hickman’s long poem that in one form or another makes up sixty percent of his collected works, as Maximus goes to the leather bars, particularly as the one portion that appeared in print in Hickman’s own lifetime was Tiresias I:9:B: Great Slave Lake Suite, a book commonly known by its subtitle, a pun not only on the S&M subculture within the gay community, but the whole idea of “going north.” I say “in one form or another” because it’s evident here that Hickman wrestled with Tiresias pretty much his entire life as a poet, without ever fully settling on the form it was to take. All but the final two passages – presented here as “Unpublished Tiresias” – are labeled as Tiresias I, implying of course II & other numbers. AIDS prevented Hickman from ever getting to these. Plus there is a suite of quasi-Tiresias pieces entitled Elements that convert passages of I:9:B into a suite of “discrete” poems.

Tiresias is, for all these reasons, one of the most interesting / problematic of all the longpoems to come out of the New American (& behind it, the Pound-Williams-Zukofsky) tradition. While the whole problem of completion seems inherent in the form – the only of those generations who got their long work done was Zukofsky, but solely because his wife finished it for him. Tiresias at times feels like the launching pad for a tremendous poem that has yet to be written.

• Ross Siler of The Salt Lake Tribune: "Once the season’s over, Tim Buckley from the Deseret News and I have decided to publish an anthology of stories that had to be almost completely rewritten or scrapped entirely given the absurdity of some of the deadline games the Jazz have played. (Chapter 1: Sundiata.) The Jazz added to the list Thursday with another head-spinning comeback, this time overcoming an 11-point deficit with a 41-point fourth quarter to beat the Phoenix Suns and equal their entire total of road victories from last season (15) by March 4 of this one. The Jazz hit seven three-pointers and got a combined 24 points in the fourth quarter from Deron Williams and C.J. Miles. They led 2-0 in the opening minute and didn’t take their next lead until 103-102 with 3:06 remaining on Miles’ steal and three-point play. 'I thought our guys played well,' Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. 'We hung in there and hung in there. We stayed within 10, 12 points with them most of the time. And then all of a sudden we made a couple stops and hit a couple big shots.' "
• Israel Gutierrez of The Miami Herald: "It wasn't just Thursday's victory the Heat needed. Sure, it was a timely victory because the bottom end of the Eastern Conference playoffs starts to settle around the Heat, and because the Heat just came off arguably its worst victory of the season against a dressed-up NBDL team. But more than that, this victory against the best team in the Western Conference -- a victory that at times displayed artistry, balance, courage, grit, defense and the ability to withstand a ruthless Kobe Bryant -- gives the Heat something it hasn't had since a 6-1 start to the season. It gives the Heat reason to believe that it has something to believe in. For far too long during a season that has been the definition of mediocrity, a dark cloud has weighed too heavily on this group."
• Ron Green Jr. of The Charlotte Observer: "It's easy to play what might have been with the Hornets' choice of Kobe Bryant -- and the near-miss with Steve Nash -- but it was a different time. Bryant wasn't seen in quite the same can't miss-way as LeBron James entering the NBA draft. He grew into one of the game's greatest players, but there was no guarantee of that happening in 1996. Between them, Bryant and Nash have been named the NBA's most valuable player three times in the past six years (Nash in 2004-05 and 2005-06; Bryant in 2007-08) while helping to define the modern professional game. In retirement in San Antonio, Bob Bass points out that 12 teams passed on Bryant before the Hornets called his name. Six years after that draft, the Hornets had moved to New Orleans. It's easy to think what might be different had Vlade Divac refused to accept the trade and Bryant was left with Charlotte as his only option. On paper, it looks so simple: The Charlotte Hornets drafted Kobe Bryant, then traded him. 'What were they thinking?' Bass asks rhetorically. 'You had to be there.' "
• Michael Grange of the Globe and Mail: "The idea Andrea Bargnani has a lot more to bring to the table offensively or is somehow stifled playing second banana to Chris Bosh didn't gain any momentum with Bosh hurt -- which is perhaps why Bargnani is as happy to see him return as anyone. 'When Chris plays, it's more easy,' Bargnani said yesterday. 'They guard me with more attention. It's tougher, the other team prepares the [game plan] more.' But the recent experience might help Bargnani long-term. 'I think it' s going to help him down the road because it's new,' Raptors head coach Jay Triano said. 'It's something he'll have to adapt to if he's ever going to become the focal point of the offence on certain plays.' If he can develop his game to the point he requires a double-team, it would take a load off Bosh. If Bosh leaves, Bargnani might have to deal with more attention than he would like. 'I'm sure it's a little different for him,' Bosh said. 'It takes time. It takes time to get used to things like that. It took me about two years.' "
• Stephen A. Smith and Bill Ordine of The Philadelphia Inquirer: "The divorce proceedings are the latest development in the deterioration of Allen Iverson's personal and professional lives: According to several NBA sources with knowledge of the situation, Iverson has been troubled by excessive drinking. His legal problems include a number of civil lawsuits. Iverson's once-brilliant basketball career is probably finished, before many had expected. At 34, he is left to ponder his future. The Iversons have known each other since their junior high school days in Virginia. Their youngest child is 17 months; the oldest is 15."
• Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel: "John Salmons is a quiet guy. That's one of the first things you notice about the unassuming pro the Milwaukee Bucks acquired at the trade deadline about two weeks ago. But don't mistake Salmons' demeanor for being unconcerned. In the words of Bucks coach Scott Skiles, 'unflappable' is the more appropriate term. 'He's a steady influence,' Skiles said. 'He's pretty much the same every day. You don't get the sense in a big game or a not-so-big game that he's going to ride the emotional roller coaster up and down. 'He's not going to get rattled out there.' Bucks fans got an look at Salmons' calming influence in his first game with the team. After a turnover in the final minutes had put a Milwaukee victory in jeopardy, Salmons rose up over Detroit's Ben Wallace and stuck a three-pointer with the shot clock running down. 'He's unflappable, I guess is the word that comes to mind,' Skiles said. 'It doesn't mean he's going to have a great game every night. But if he doesn't, you're going to come back and see the same guy. There's maturity in that. Yet at the same time, you can see the passion for the game when he plays.' ... Ask Salmons about his ability to handle late-game situations, and he has a short but honest assessment. 'I've just got to say it's God, and we'll leave it at that,' Salmons said."
• Ken Sugiura of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Through Wednesday's games, forward Josh Smith was the only player in the NBA averaging at least 15 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists per game. Since being left out of the All-Star game, a season-long goal of Smith's, he has been playing arguably the best basketball of his career. Said Mike Woodson, 'He's playing so much better right now, it's a joke.' Woodson said he will write letters to fellow coaches urging them to vote for Smith for the All-Defensive team, just as he wrote to Eastern Conference coaches to make the case for Joe Johnson, Al Horford, Jamal Crawford and Smith for the All-Star team. Woodson said he had never promoted his players in this way until this year. Said Woodson, 'Because we've never been good enough.' "
• Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post: "Chris Andersen has dealt with nagging injuries this season but finds optimism in two places: the win column and the blocked shots list. The Nuggets improved the former Wednesday night in a 119-90 win against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Andersen was in the middle of it with 13 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots. 'He plays to win,' Nuggets guard Arron Afflalo said. 'So it's always good to see him play well.' Yet the stat that brought him his fame has kept Ander-sen fighting through knee tendinitis all season, even on nights when he probably should have sat out. 'I want to keep climbing the 'block' list, the Nuggets' block list,' Andersen said. 'So I've got to get out there, man. Even if I get a half a block, I'm trying to get it. That keeps me motivated, and we have an opportunity to go out here and get this championship.' Andersen has a ways to go to catch Alex English, let alone the Nuggets' all-time blocks king, Dikembe Mutombo. English was never known for his defensive prowess but is fifth on the Nuggets' career blocked shot chart with 624 in 10-plus seasons. After Wednesday's game, Andersen, in his fifth season with the Nuggets, checked in with 484 blocked shots."
• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: "New Jersey center  Brook Lopez ranks as one of the best young big men in the NBA. He'll have another chance to prove it when the lowly Nets host Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic tonight in East Rutherford, N.J. Howard has dominated Lopez so far this season. In fact, Howard may have found the formula for slowing Lopez down. 'He's one of the bigs who can really shoot the ball,' Howard said Thursday. 'He's a big body. The thing with him is you have to move him, run him, beat him up and down the floor and be aggressive. By doing all that stuff on the offensive end and pressuring him on the defensive end usually he gets tired a little bit faster than a lot of people. So, you take advantage of that.' Howard has averaged 23.0 points and 17.0 rebounds in two games against the Nets so far this season. Lopez, on the other hand, has averaged just 7.5 points and 5.0 rebounds and battled foul trouble against the Magic."
• Brian T. Smith of The Columbian: "Jerryd Bayless said that he is not perfect. Then he stated that Andre Miller, Chris Paul and Deron Williams are not perfect, either. Bayless acknowledged that he has not met his own high expectations this season. But he quickly added that it was a tough question to answer, primarily because his playing time has severely faded in and out of fashion. Then the former Arizona standout said he does not pay attention to fans or commentators who critique his game. But he soon followed up the comment by stating, 'People can say what they want, but I’ll get the last laugh.' Wrapped like a hot, tight wire, it initially appeared that Bayless was still in the same uneven place he was when the season began. Frustrated about his minutes; defensive about his talent; guarded to the point where it was safe to wonder how much Jerryd Bayless was actually enjoying being Jerryd Bayless. Then there was a moment. Nothing truly changed. The words kept rolling, and Bayless continued to stare out at a huge, empty basketball court. But the fiery, explosive guard relaxed a little, laughed, and dared to look ahead. 'I know what I can do in this league,' Bayless said. 'And I’d love to be a starter here, and be the point guard of this team.' "
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: "It took a 29-point drubbing at Denver to expose a deep, dark secret simmering in Oklahoma City, a disturbing detail that puts a damper on the delirium Thunder fans have enjoyed all season. What was revealed in Wednesday’s loss, the worst of the season, was the latest bit of evidence that illustrated just where the Thunder ranks in the NBA hierarchy. For all its quantum leaps, the Thunder still struggles to beat playoff teams. ... The Thunder is just 7-11 against current West playoff teams. And even that mark is misleading when you factor in the breaks the Thunder has caught in four of those wins. Oklahoma City secured a three-point win at San Antonio in mid-November with Manu Ginobili sitting out the entire fourth quarter. The Thunder pummeled the Nuggets in late January while Carmelo Anthony looked on from the bench in street clothes with a bum ankle. And in February, OKC pounced on a Portland team playing without Brandon Roy, Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla, then defeated a revamped Dallas squad playing its first game with Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson. The Mavs have not lost since. That leaves the Thunder with three wins against Western Conference playoff teams playing at full strength -- a home and away win against Utah and a road win at Phoenix."
• Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune: "The Wolves lost 112-109 to the Mavs on Wednesday, five days after they got clobbered in front of a loud, sellout crowd in Oklahoma City. 'Guys like to perform, absolutely,' Kurt Rambis said. 'But I'd have them look at the Oklahoma City game: Same college environment, packed house. We didn't fare too well there. Maybe you should have brought that up to them.' Either way, Target Center doesn't remind Hollins of Pauley Pavilion or Flynn of the Carrier Dome. 'That's part of our job to play hard, play an exciting brand of basketball and to win games,' Rambis said. 'That's what draws fans in. That's part of my job as a coach. That's part of their job as players. And we've got to find a way to get wins. People like wins.' "
• Heath hamilton of the Houston Chronicle: "The think tank co-chaired by Rockets general manager Daryl Morey this weekend goes beyond mere X's and O's. A meeting of notable minds will convene in Boston on Saturday for the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. What began in 2004 as a class taught by Morey, who earned his MBA from MIT, has essentially evolved into a public sports think tank. More than 14 panels on the changing dynamics of sports will include league executives and industry insiders. Demand is at an all-time high for this year's sold-out conference. Tickets went for as much as $200. One group in New Hampshire was so eager to attend that it raised money through an old-fashioned car wash, according to Morey."

I hate reposting Abu Dhabi blog entries while the fair is still going on (or, to be more accurate, just starting), since everyone should be visiting the official ADIBF blog for info about all the goings on. That said, since I will be attending the award ceremony for this year’s Arab Booker later tonight, and since with a little luck (re: not drinking till 4am) I’ll be able to write a post later with info about the winner, I thought it would be useful to make this available here as well.

Later tonight the winner of this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (aka the Arab Booker) will be announced. The IPAF was launched in April 2007 and is probably the most prestigious and important literary prize in the Arab World. It “aims to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning and shortlisted novels in other major languages.”

To help promote awareness of the award and the finalists, the IPAF puts out the annual “Best of New Arabic Fiction” anthology with excerpts from each of the six shortlisted titles. So, in advance of tonight’s announcement, I thought it would be interesting to post short bits from the book about the titles in contention:

“Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles” by Abdo Khal (Saudi Arabia, Al-Jamal Publications). Totally dig this title. Sounds like something I’d write late at night . . . too late at night. Here’s the description: “A painfully satirical novel, “Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles” depicts the destructive impact that power and limitless wealth have on life and the environment. It captures the seductive powers of the palace and tells the agonizing story of those who have become enslaved by it, drawn by its promise of glamour.”

“When the Wolves Grow Old” by Jamal Naji (Jordan, Ministry of Culture Publications, Amman). Another nice title. And a solid opening: “Azmi al-Wajih has humiliated me three times. The first was in the house of his father, who had fallen in love with me and married me. The second was on the day he caught me in the inner room of the house of Sheikh Abd al-Hamid al-Jinzir. And the third was thirteen years later, when I was thirty-eight years old.”

“Beyond Paradise” by Mansoura Ez Eldin (Egypt, El-Ain Publishing). If I remember right, both of the first two Arab Bookers went to Egyptian writers, so perhaps Mansoura can be considered one of the favorites . . . She’s quite young—younger than I am, actually—and in addition to this book, she is the author of a collection of short stories (“Shaken Light”) and the novel “Maryam’s Maze,” which is forthcoming in English from American University in Cairo Press. She was also selected for the Beirut39, as one of the 39 best Arab authors below the age of 40. “Beyond Paradise” is about an editor of a literary magazine who “is trying to dispose of her negative self-image by liberating herself from a past loaded with painful memories.”

“A Cloudy Day on the West Side” by Mohamed Mansi Qandil (Egypt, Dar El Shorouk). According to the description, this novel “evokes the period of great archeological discovery and nationalist struggle in Egypt.” It’s about a translator, a young woman who is abandoned after her mother is forced to flee her abusive husband. As she grows up, her life intersects with a number of historical figures, including Howard Carter, Lord Cromer, and Abdulrahman al-Rifa’i. “This thrilling tale is brought to life by the author’s detailed and vivid descriptions of real historical events and places.”

“The Lady from Tel Aviv” by Rabai Al-Madhoun (Palestine, Arab Institute for Research and Publishing). Focused on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, this novel also has a pretty good opening: “The question surprises me. From the moment I sat down in my seat until the moment she asks the question, it bothers me. From scenes of war, the question pulls me right up to the edge an answer. At first I am nervous, too unsettled to choose an answer. I might have picked any other nationality—anything but Palestinian—in my fear that someone might overhear us and shout out to all the other passengers: ‘Palestinian! This man’s a Palestinian!’ It’s possible. What if one of them got up and made the announcement? ‘Ladies and gentlemen: there’s a Palestinian on board this airplane!’”

“America” by Rabee Jaber (Lebanon, Al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi). This is the book that I think is going to win. The whole East-West theme. America. And a compelling story: “‘America’ evokes the story of the Syrians who left their homeland in the early twentieth century to try their luck in the young America. Spurred on by a sense of adventure and the desire to escape poverty, they made the epic journey. Leaving their homeland with only a few belongings, their journel takes in everything from their travels across mountains and plains, to their gradual integration into American society, later becoming citizens of America and fighting its wars. In particular, the novel focuses on the character of Martha, who travels alone to New York in search of her husband, with whom she has lost contact. America is a tribute to those who left Syria in search of a new life from those who remained behind.”

I’ll post about the winner as soon as possible . . .

Warner Bros has pass along to us a 44-second clip from Halo: Legends, a CG & traditional animated anthology containing eight episodes that explores the origin and historical events of the Halo universe and its various characters inhabiting the world. Like Animatrix and Batman Gotham Knight, each of the episodes was created by a separate prominent Japanese anime producer. In this particular clip, we get to see an action scene with Master Chief and his fellow Spartans blast their way through enemies in true kick-ass fashion. This was taken from the episode entitled "The Package" which was animated by Casio Entertainment under the creative supervision of Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed Ex Machina) and from a script by Dai Sato (Cowboy Bebop).

"The Package" finds Master Chief and four specially-selected Spartans launched out of a stealth cruiser and into the heart of a giant Covenant fleet in a bid to recover a valuable intelligence asset. The episode is a showcase for the Spartans' impressive fighting capabilities, whether it be hand-to-hand combat, ground assaults, or in zero-G while piloting never-before-seen light attack vehicles.

Very cool stuff. The single disc and 2-disc special edition for both DVD and Blu-Ray is available in stores, digital download and in-demand on February 16th.  You'll find the clip embedded below.

By: BOMB Magazine

Little known in the United States outside of academic circles, Evelyne Trouillot is one of Haiti's most celebrated intellectual thinkers. A prolific writer, Trouillot has authored numerous children's books, a collection of poetry and a collection of short stories, numerous plays, two novels, and countless essays and articles in both the mainstream and academic press. True to her Caribbean roots, Trouillot writes in French, Creole, and English, and has examined the current state of the Creole and French languages in Haitian society in a number of academic papers.

 

This 2005 discussion between Trouillot and Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat is a standout in the BOMB Magazine series  because more than any other, the interview is truly a conversation between two artistic equals than a traditional Q&A. In it, Trouillot and Danticat discuss Haiti's complex history of violent political unrest and natural disasters and how each has dealt with that legacy in and through their work.

 

Read the full interview from BOMB Magazine Issue 90, Winter 2005.

 —Adda Birnir

 

INTERVIEW:

Edwidge Danticat: In September 2004, Haiti experienced yet another national disaster. As the third of three devastating storms—Tropical Storm Jeanne—raged through the Caribbean, it struck Haiti’s fourth largest city, the port city of Gonaïves, the birthplace of the country’s 200-year-old independence, leaving 3,000 people dead and a quarter of a million homeless. In one of the city’s largest hospitals, patients drowned in their beds. In surrounding houses, parents watched helplessly as their children were swept away. Fields and livestock representing years of Herculean labor were washed into the sea because the nude, eroded soil offered little resistance to the flash floods and mudslides. What was your first reaction to this catastrophe? I was told that you sat down and wrote a poem.

Evelyne Trouillot: In Haiti this year we have had many terrible events: the days before and after the departure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the flooding of Fonds-Verrettes and Mapou in May 2004 and now the Gonaïves disaster. We all hope that the remainder of the year will be peaceful. But we also know that the country is going through an important period that requires all of our energy, our spirit and our creativity. When I learned of the Gonaïves tragedy, I went through a period of shock and sadness, a kind of numbness where the mind refuses to work and the senses can only register the sorrow. I wished for the power to change things, to erase the sadness, but like so many others, I felt helpless. It is one thing to intellectually understand the social, economic and ecological reasons for such a catastrophe, but it is something else to grasp that thousands of human beings, compatriots, women and children, young and old have lost their lives. I was sick. I’m still sick, and when I’m sick I write. With the pain still inside, and it will stay forever, I wrote a short story for children, about a girl who survived the Gonaïves flooding and who must live with her sadness. Then I wrote a poem that will be part of an anthology project to benefit the people of Gonaïves, specifically to enable the reconstruction of libraries and cultural centers that were destroyed.

ED: You’ve already published an exceptional children’s book called L’île de Ti Jean (Ti Jean’s island), which deals with a young boy’s effort to peacefully co-exist with nature. In the story, Ti Jean concocts a plan to always keep his island, Haiti, surrounded by the sea. By sitting down to write on this occasion, an occasion on which nature had been so cruel, were you trying to reclaim Ti Jean’s beautiful idyllic world for all of us?

ET: Writing can be both a task of memory, or homage, and simply a hand held out, the offer to share a sadness that’s too heavy to bear alone. To continue working and try to make a difference constitutes both an obligation and a renewal. This does not mean that writers cannot intervene in other ways, but for me writing helps me sort out my thoughts and feelings, and at the same time, I think I can have some impact on people’s minds. In L’île de Ti Jean I wanted to show first the natural beauty of the country but mostly the resilience and creativity of children. Somehow, in the story about Gonaïves, a little girl called Ana goes through the same process of finding strength to go beyond the tragedy and build a new life.

ED: In my own mind I tend to equate what happened in Gonaïves with the World Trade Center disaster here in New York on September 11th. It’s certainly an event that silenced many writers and artists into sadness, but also encouraged others to explore new ways of working.

ET: I also think that the Gonaïves tragedy is comparable to that of the World Trade Center, the obvious difference being that a group of individuals deliberately caused the latter…

ED: Of course.

ET: For its impact on the Haitian population in general, the Gonaïves tragedy can be considered a defining event of our time. It’s not just about mourning our dead, which we continue to do, but moving forward from the present, working to prevent similar catastrophes from happening in the future. Groups of citizens, of doctors, engineers and other professionals are working together to reflect upon ways to prevent another national disaster. The government had to take some concrete measures (like the closing of the sand mine) to stop the deterioration of the environment. The event has allowed our nation to come together in the face of adversity, and it helps to see the gestures of national and international solidarity. Actually, I want to emphasize gestures of national solidarity, since these act as a breath of hope in this country. We must question not only our methods of environmental management but also, more deeply, our policy of exclusion, which generates resentment and social conflicts, and this can only be done by our citizens.

ED: I completely agree with you. Yet what do you make of the fact that even as we were mourning the loss of so many lives in Gonaïves, there was still fighting in the streets of Port-au-Prince between the supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian national police and the UN forces? There was even fighting on the anniversary of the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, [Toussaint] L’Ouverture’s successor, on October 17, which seems like more salt, if you would, on our revolutionary wound. Some people have said outright that Haiti is “paying” for all of the horrific bloodshed of 200 years ago during its battle of independence, the blood of blacks, whites, as well as mulattos and affranchis, free people of color. Everyone seems to have a theory. Do you have one? Is there room to look at these sad and tragic moments the country has faced this year as cyclical, or simply coincidental? Do we owe some psychic debt for which we are paying? Does the world owe us one?

ET: Haitians often find themselves up against this question. Some ask it outright, while some murmur it with embarrassment. As you say, this year the question has come up more often since we have had a series of tragedies: human, political and natural. These events seem to bolster the opinion of some people, Haitian and otherwise, that this nation was born in the shadows of violence and death that still follow it two centuries later. I always say that Haiti is neither damned nor blessed. Our history began uniquely, on a track that has not yet been traced. We have made many errors and continue to do so, and while I do not minimize our part of the responsibility, I can’t ignore the offensive reception that the international community reserves for Haiti, the sabotage and isolation that this young nation had to face. Haiti suffers the consequences of its history, of the bad choices of its leaders and of the politics of the superpowers with regard to it. I hope that the world will not wait for more tragedies to mobilize. It really seems to me that this year, that of the bicentennial, is a turning point. This year arrived in great chaos, like a surprise guest that one does not know what to do with, a guest one is not at all ready to receive. But the bicentennial is not only an occasion for sadness. The country has known repression and intolerance, but there have also been moments of extraordinary courage. This is a year not just to celebrate the past; it is a year to build, to change, to question, to recover our history and demystify it.

Read the full interview from BOMB Magazine Issue 90, Winter 2005.

 

Used with permission. All rights reserved. © BOMB Magazine, New Art Publications, and its Contributors.

 

FURTHER LINKS:

 

Evelyne Trouillot, “In the Shade of the Almond Tree,” Words Without Borders

Edwidge Danticat, “Ghosts,” The New Yorker

 

It turned out to be quite the interesting year, didn't it? Even though a batch of games got pushed back to next year, 2009 still had a pretty impressive roster of titles. The obvious ones we've already covered, but we wanted to break down our favorites from the year on a more personal level. All this week we'll be featuring G4tv.com and X-Play staffers' picks from 2009 -- whether they were the best games we've played, the most interesting, or the most under-the-radar, these are the ones that stuck with us the most.

Click here for our official Best of 2009 awards.

• Part One: Adam Sessler & Abbie Heppe
  
• Part Two: Patrick Klepek, Andrew Pfister & Michael Demski
  

*   *   *

Rob Manuel – The Dali Gamer

Weird. Unique. Art. Just fun. Always looking for the next big indie title.

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Not only a great game, Uncharted 2 raised the bar for storytelling for the medium. The game treated action as a part of the overall story rather than a way to move from plot point to plot point. Naughty Dog seamlessly integrates cut-scenes within the action itself to raise the drama. Add to this one of the finest cast of characters assembled in a game, and what you get is a video game that plays more like a movie.

2. Borderlands

It’s not often that I care more about the guns I carry around than the characters. My level 37 Siren still packs a shotgun from ten levels ago that can put out more damage than anything else with a trigger. Borderlands came out of nowhere to appease the gnawing hunger left behind with the dearth of quality dungeon crawlers on the market. If nothing else, setting your enemies on fire and listening to them scream is a whole lot of fun. 

3. Torchlight

This may be the best twenty bucks you spend all year. Forget about the story. I’m talking about bottomless dungeons, interesting enemies, and more loot than you could ever hoard. Thankfully, you’ve brought a trusty companion with you to take all the worthless items and sell them in town. Brilliant! Some gamers may be holding their breath for the release of Diablo III. I am breathing easy while grinding my way through this great indie title.

4. Flower

Sometimes a game comes at just the right moment in your life. Flower is beautiful, serene, and a bit of sunshine in a gloomy world. I remember going through a rough spot in my life and turning on Flower for a little break in the day. You fly through luscious landscapes collecting petals and painting the world with life. While short, the game is beautiful in its simplicity and fun to play.

5. Shadow Complex

You had me at "Metroidvania." It would seem like an easy concept -- an expansive system of rooms and tunnels that constantly evolve as you gain new powers. Shadow Complex embraces the genre full force with enough creativity and charm that you never feel like they’re trying to rip off the classics. As soon as I saw the floating bodies in the flooded cafeteria, I knew that this was something special.

Brian Leahy

1. Street Fighter IV

I spent more time playing Street Fighter IV this year than any other game, easily. The game has a perfect amount of nostalgia matched with a shiny, new feel and is responsible for revitalizing 2D fighting games outside of Japan. I even went to EVO 2009 and competed (I won one round)! Furthermore, I'm looking forward to Super Street Fighter IV in 2010.

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

As a longtime multiplayer FPS fanatic, MW2 is a no-brainer for me. The addictive multiplayer from CoD4 has been super-charged with even more to unlock, killstreak customization, and new gametypes. I've been playing this online whenever I can and probably won't stop anytime soon.

3. DJ Hero

I've been waiting for a US-made DJ game after importing and putting many hours into Beatmania IIDX. I recognize that most people's enjoyment of DJ Hero is going to be directly tied with how good they are at the game, but coming from IIDX, I was able to jump right in and scratch like a natural. Throw in the new mash-ups and this is a great game if you're into the genre.

4. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said? Excellent from start to finish. Amazing writing, acting, and action all coming together in one of the most beautiful and varied games ever released. Get going, Naughty Dog...I'm already waiting for Uncharted 3.

5. Dragon Age: Origins

BioWare's return to its roots is something I've been waiting for since Neverwinter Nights failed to grab me the same way Baldur's Gate II did. The game is just sprawling and BioWare has created its own world and ruleset for more games going forward. Just make sure you pick up the PC version for user-created content.

 

Matt Keil – Avalanche Surfer

Riding the entire holiday release wave to glory…or a rocky death.

In the interest of changing things up a bit, instead of my straight up “Top 5 of 2009,” I’m going to list games that I feel may get lost in the shuffle when it comes time for the industry’s “Best Of” roundups…

1. Assassin’s Creed II

Except for this one. I was a huge fan of the first game, and the sequel is an all-around improvement that realizes the ambitions of the concept far more effectively. Ezio is a much more engaging character than Altair, the Truth subplot was very appealing to this old X-Files fan, the combat offered far more variety, and there was never any lack of something to do. What could have been a fairly lazy sequel that just sat back and let consumer inertia do its work for it turned out to be an almost full reworking on every level. I’m on board for wherever Ubisoft takes this series next.

2. Street Fighter IV

Not a minor title, but arguably still a niche one in the grand scheme of things. As an arcade rat from the olden days, so much so that my first job was actually working in one (shout out to the old Acardaday crowd in RWC…by the gods of thunder!), the resurgence of fighting games in the last year or so has been a beautiful thing. Street Fighter IV is better than I ever would have thought an installment made so long after the heyday of the series could be, no doubt in large part due to the efforts of designers and producers who grew up playing Street Fighter the same way I did. The most notable element of SFIV for me is the netcode, which makes online matches a viable method of competition after so many years of laggy unplayable messes. This is unquestionably my top multiplayer title of 2009.

3. God of War Collection

I mention this not just because the God of War games are excellent and deserve the best presentation possible, but because I think this is a wonderful way to showcase last-gen games that perhaps outstripped the hardware they ran on at the time. As new installments of older series crop up this gen, upscaled collections like this one are invaluable for raising awareness and reminding old fans of why they’re excited for a new series entry to begin with. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, this is mostly me trying to convince Sony to do a Team Ico Collection to build hype for The Last Guardian.

4. 1 vs. 100

I didn’t give much thought to this game until I started seeing some of my regular online-play friends grouping up and playing it almost every night. Finally I joined up to try it out and was frankly blown away by the presentation and how well it works as an informal social gathering game. The fact that you can win prizes and gain a little notoriety (as chronic #1 ranker A Patch Of Blue has by now) is great, and the online interactive game show is a concept whose time has certainly come, but the social aspect is really the star here. Hanging out in an Xbox Live Party with people you rarely or perhaps never see in person is what puts this game on par with gathering the real-life gang for a poker night or D&D session.

5. Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection

After many failed attempts to collect SEGA’s former glory days in anthology form, SUGC is what finally succeeded at the task. Top-notch presentation, mostly accurate emulation, and a huge list of titles that covers almost all the best Genesis and 16-bit era arcade hits from the former hardware pusher. As retro releases become more and more prevalent, I hope those working on such things will look to titles like this one as a template for how to do it right. Perhaps the only real frustration is the lack of Revenge of Shinobi. Sonic gets how many collections inside five years, but I can’t get one comprehensive Shinobi Collection? C’mon, guys, my Game Gear broke years ago and I want to play the GG Shinobi again.