Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men has just won the British Book Award for Book of the Year. This was the first time that the public was allowed to vote on the award. I suppose it goes to show what’s on people’d minds right now.
Link via MobyLives.
It’s my birthday today. And as if to confirm the fact that I am indeed older, I didn’t know half of the performers mentioned at the Grammys last night. Who the hell is 50 cent? BigTymer? Remy Shand?
And I drank chamomille tea.
And I went to bed at 10:30.
So there.
Addendum: Alex and I went to Chaya for a quiet dinner tonight (but thanks to Neil, Candy, Irene, Drew, Sage, Maria, Keaver, and Carl for a fantastic dinner on Saturday). Ate entirely too much. Ran into an old friend I haven’t seen in almost a year.
This is the best author interview I’ve seen in years. The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten talks to Robert Burrow, author of the novel “Great American Parade.” Here is the opener:
“I am on the phone with Robert Burrows, author of the recently published political novel Great American Parade. This book has sold only 400 copies nationwide, and Burrows seems flabbergasted to be hearing from me. The most prestigious newspaper to have shown any interest so far is the Daily Student at Indiana University.
I tell Burrows that if he is willing to submit to an interview, I am willing to review his book at length in The Washington Post. The only catch, I said, is that I am going to say that it is, in my professional judgment, the worst novel ever published in the English language.
Silence.
“My review will reach 2 million people,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. ”
Link via Metafilter.
Between the recent woes of Amiri Baraka and Tom Paulin, the White House cancellation of its February poetry event, and the resulting spate of anti-war poems, it does seem like poets are in the news a lot lately. Joshua Clover asks Why Poetry? Why now? in this Village Voice article. Clover’s answer:
“We are now into the second year of a period when words are being policed with particular vigor, hemmed in by off-the-record advisories as much as by Patriot Acts and Total Information Awareness. But such measures can’t help but suggest that words themselves matter, now more than ever. Poets have been saying that all along.”
Link via Moby Lives.
Addendum: A review of the event “Poems Not Fit for the White House,” by Kelefa Sanneh in today’s New York Times.