Now that the Pentagon has one of its own on CNN, it shouldn’t be too difficult to educate the American people about the righteousness of the Administration’s policies. Elsewhere, I see that the democratization of Iraq is in full swing, as Pentagon-backed Chalabi is denying press access to the major Arab outlets.
Last week I went to the reading that Monica Ali gave at Dutton’s in Brentwood. Ali read an excerpt from further along in the book, when her character Nazneen, a Bengali village girl transplanted to Tower Hamlets in London, goes with her husband Chanu and her daughters sightseeing around the city. After the reading was over, the hostess, in a white dentelle shirt, red flower in her hair, was the first to ask a question. “Please,” she said, “tell us about yourself.” Her interest in the author, if not the book, was apparent. An old man at the front wanted to know “Did you grow up in Tower Hamlets?” and so on. I thought when a book makes the bestseller list, it meant that people were actually reading it. Silly me. They’re just interested in the pretty girl on the cover. But it got worse. Someone else asked, “Were you raised black or white?” If she was stunned, Ali didn’t let on. She explained that she was in fact half Bengali and half British, that she was born in Dhaka and bred in London, etc. The man persisted, “Which parent were you closer to?” “Who did you talk to more?” he demanded. Welcome to the melting pot.
This is nothing new, but Tarek has a good post on touch-screen voting machines and the people who provide them.
Since the Booker seems to like ‘em younger these days, a bunch of people put together a prize for writers over the age of 50. It’s called the Saga Award for Wit and the winner is Alexander McCall Smith.
had a performance of Andalusian music in New York last week, reviewed here.
Bernard-Henry Levy’s book, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, published in the U.S. by Melville House, is reviewed here and here.
New additions to the must-read list: The Old Hag who says it better than most, the always amusing La MuseLivre, and the bitingly funny The Antic Muse. Also, Jessa is back.
as you read this article on the ceremony that was held last week to celebrate 216 years of the Constitution. Take this tidbit:
We have seen freedom’s power in Europe and Asia and Africa and Latin America, and we will see freedom’s power in the Middle East,” Bush said, addressing about 200 guests.
As Dubya happily shoulders his White Man’s Burden, someone should send him a world map with the following neatly outlined in red Sharpie ™: Cyprus, Belarus and Armenia (in Europe), China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka (in Asia), Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala, and Colombia (in Latin America) and pretty much all of Africa. But wait, there’s more:
Bush then added, “Every person in every culture has the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Except for those who might stand in the way of oil companies.
Though Britain has had a poet laureate for centuries, the United States has had one only since 1986, when legislators renamed the position of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. The Library itself now describes the poet laureate, perhaps alarmingly, as ‘the nation’s official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans.
I laughed out loud at “lightning rod” even if tears might have been more appropriate. Stephen Burt has a profile of poet laureate Louise Gluck in the Boston Globe.
Why can’t these authors write what they really think when they see the Booker shortlist? It would make a refreshing change to read an 800-word piece that just said: “Bastards! Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!” The most important thing for any writer is honesty, as I always say to Martin Amis when he rings me up for advice.
John O’Farrell on why it should have been him.
