sad news
Friday, July 18th, 2003
The poet Reetika Vazirani (and wife of Pulitzer prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa) killed her son and then committed suicide. Details are scant. Link via Moby.
Laila Lalami
Archive for July, 2003
sinbad spun
Friday, July 18th, 2003
Dreamworks’ Sinbad movie bears little resemblance to its Middle-Eastern roots. It’s been Greco-Romanized, says this National Geographic article.
stranger than fiction
Friday, July 18th, 2003
Seems straight out of a John Le Carre novel: Dr. David Kelly, a British scientist and ex-UN inspector who was said to be the main source of the BBC’s reports that Tony Blair exaggerated/obsfuscated/lied about the Iraq threat, has been found dead. Elsewhere, we’re still in Animal House mode, as Bush says that the reason we went to war with Iraq was that “We gave [Saddam] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in.”
palahniuk on portland
Friday, July 18th, 2003
Since visiting the Pacific Northwest last fall, I’ve had this fantasy of moving to Portland someday. A long time from now. So I was quite interested in Chuck Palahniuk’s new book, which is a non-fiction paean to the city–a twisted one (it’s Palahniuk after all.) The Seattle PI has a piece on it.
Caine Prize results announced
Thursday, July 17th, 2003
The winning story was by Kenya’s Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. Here’s the BBC story.
L.A.’s used-book stores
Thursday, July 17th, 2003
Could this be a reaction to the survey of America’s “most literate cities” that put L.A. at number 54? The Los Angeles Times has a piece about L.A.’s used-book stores that says “For devotees of the used-book store, Los Angeles has quietly become one of the last bastions, for L.A. has become one of the last great American book towns. New York may be home to the publishing industry and Lewis Lapham’s thesaurus, Chicago still has Saul Bellow, but in both those cities high rents and the Internet have driven many of the venerable used- and rare-book stores out of business. But here, the book business is thriving. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the greater Los Angeles area is the largest book market in the country now with 21.5% of the books sold by independent bookstores, the highest percentage in the country.”
farewell to two greats
Thursday, July 17th, 2003
Carol Shields and Celia Cruz have both died. Adios guajira, guantanamera.
calling a spade a spade
Thursday, July 17th, 2003
finally! John Abizaid, the new Centcom Commander, has said that U.S. troops are facing a “classical guerrilla-type campaign.” What a mess.
new al jadid
Tuesday, July 15th, 2003
A new issue of Al Jadid magazine is up, featuring fiction by Diana Abu-Jaber and essays by Hanan Al-Shaykh, Etel Adnan, and Elmaz Abinader, among others.
