5.24.2007

Antoine Wilson's The Interloper

The Interloper has been released and is getting raves ("...It's like leaving a party with a designated driver, only to discover as you swerve down the driveway that your new friend is drunker than you are. Or worse, completely insane." -- LA Times, "As assured and sumptuously written as any first novel I've encountered... clever and compelling.... This is writing at its very best." -- TC Boyle).

Workshop grad, Public Space contributing editor, and sometime commenter here, Antoine Wilson has begun a LA/NY tour of readings (but Prairie Lights in September). There's a nice interview of Antoine here and a picture of him acting like he's eating fish tacos.

5.17.2007

2007 Eurovision Song Contest


Click that picture to brighten your day. That's Verka Serduchka.

I'm late with this, but last Saturday was the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual televised pop music event event now in its 52nd year. This time it was held in Helsinki. To watch it, we went to a dinner dance party in Amsterdam hosted by The Undutchables, an employment agency for foreigners like us. The party, held in the sanctuary of an old ex-church, featured a buffet, massages, and a "silent disco," in which folks wore headphones with music playing and danced around in an otherwise quiet room with others who were also wearing the headphones. We didn't do it, but it looked like fun.

In the main hall, two huge screens loomed on either side with the volume up very loud -- so loud, in fact, that it was hard to talk to people, especially given that we didn't know anyone there, so we ended up focusing on the Eurovision Song Contest. The show holds a special place in our hearts, because for the 2000 contest we got very drunk watching it at a bar in Galway, Ireland, nearly ruining the next day's trip to the Aran Island of Inishmaan, where I had planned to propose to traca da broon at Synge's Chair, a seat-like formation somewhere along the rocky shoreline -- but we couldn't find the Chair and we got kind of lost and we were kind of bickering about which rock wall would lead us back to what passed for the town, so, at length, on our return I ended up proposing inside the only place that was open, a large pink hotel/pub. (Incidentally, Ireland has won the Eurovision Song Contest seven times -- two more than any other country.)

Anyway, it's one show they should televise in the States (do they? I've never seen it there) because it has it all: schlock, glitz, kitch, and razzmatazz -- plus sincere, traditional, heartfelt singers belting out their best in what will probably be their one moment of fame. Bands qualify for national heats, and the winner in each country is entered in the contest, but not all of them end up qualifying. Some two dozen acts were chosen for this year's, and at the end of the evening, after all of them have performed, the viewers in all eligible countries phone or text in their votes for the winner. One brilliant, simple rule: You can't vote for your own country.

Famously, ABBA won the contest in 1974 with "Waterloo," launching their career (check out that guitar, btw). Last year, the semi-Satanic Finnish metal band Lordi won with "Hard Rock Hallelujah." This year, many acts were merely okay, not bad, your standard pop songs -- and then Ukraine came on. Everyone was immediately hooked on "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" by Verka Serduchka, a bizarre cross-dressing character of Ukrainian comedian Andriy Danylko, who created an out-of-control spectacle that is much better experienced than described. (According to Serduchka, lasha tumbai is Mongolian for "condensed milk" -- "I want to see (Mongolian) condensed milk.")

Serduchka's outrageous flamboyance created a sensation in the room. I predicted easy victory. However, when the voting was finished, he/she had been narrowly edged out by the Serbian entry, "Molitva" a ballad sung by the obviously talented Marija Serifovic, which was admittedly "better" in terms of actual musical quality, and she probably deserved to win ... but man, at the end of Ukraine's performance my jaw was hanging open and I began cheering wildly. Because that is how it's done, mm-kay? That is a three-minute show. Of course it's silly. But it's also a little scary. And just try to get it out of your head.

I also liked Bulgaria's entry, "Water," a lot and had them as my number two. As far as the lamest goes, I'd give that honor to the UK -- Scootch''s "Flying the Flag," which is, yes, instantly, insanely catchy, but may as well have been a British Airways ad (the song starts about 40 seconds into the clip).

5.14.2007

Creating bestsellers

Nice article in the NYT about the financial side of publishing and the difficulty of predicting which books will sell, using Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep as an example of somebody doing something right.

5.13.2007

Donnie Osmond is a grandfather

Saw that on TV, checked it with Wikipedia, and ... it seems almost inconceivable, but it is fact.

5.10.2007

Free audio of poets reading their work

Want to hear Allen Ginsberg reading "A Supermarket in California" in 1956? How about James Tate reciting "Shut Up and Eat Your Toad"? Check out PennSound, a project at the University of Pennsylvania. It's not complete by any means, but there's enough to put a dent in the available space on your iPod.

5.06.2007

Ethan and the cinema

In case you missed it, as I did, Ethan Canin's story (one of my favorites) "Batorsag and Szerelem" was made into a movie called Beautiful Ohio, directed by Chad Lowe and starring William Hurt and Rita Wilson. Ethan also wrote the screenplay (his fourth to be produced). Here's a local newspaper's interview with Ethan in advance of the film's screening at the Sarasota Film Festival. (Anyone seen it?)

While we're on the topic, he also has another film in production, which he also co-wrote, based on his stories "The Year of Getting to Know Us" and "Star Food," called Rockett.