Adventures in Alcohol

I must do this:

Sabering in the Garden with Kathryn Borel Jr. from Kathryn Borel on Vimeo.

.

And she's got a book coming out. I have wasted my life.

More writerly geekery, embedded video & links

So, I'm a big fan of a writer called Neal Stephenson, as anyone who's delved into the darker recesses of this blog archive will know. He writes long books that are complex and (I think) tell good yarns, but perhaps readers of Ian McEwan (for instance) may find them off-putting. However, given my views of that author's books, particularly Atonement and Saturday it may not be so very surprising.

Anyway.

Google, in their infinite wisdom, have an ongoing series of talks for authors, helpfully called Authors@Google, in which unkempt introverts discuss the voices that chatter inside their heads and how that pays the bills. There are lots of writers on the YouTube channel - go have a look. I don't check it regularly, but it turns out Stephenson did a Q&A at Google HQ last September as part of the book tour for Anathem, his most recent work.

I found it fascinating. You might also. You might not, in which case you have my apologies. Perhaps you may need to consider reading another blog. There are quite a few about, I hear.

Here's Neal Stephenson:

- With thanks to Harry, who I would link to, if he'd ever hurry up and get published, or start a blog, or something.

Attack of the fixed gears

More here, for those of you who enjoy imagery of WWI.

The Men Who Stare At Goats (plus some other movies)

I absolutely cannot wait for this film.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (Trailer)
by ThePlaylist

(Better quality version available at Apple).

If you haven't, I'd strongly recommend the original nonfiction book and THEM: Adventures with Extremists, from the inimitable Jon Ronson.

Having been to the cinema four times this summer (probably my quota for the year), let me say that Harry Potter is a good entry for those who are following the series, though not up to Azkaban's standards, Moon is splendid, well-written and features great old-school effects that blow the likes of Transformers 2 out of the water (not hard, admittedly).

Finally, Inglourious Basterds is glorious, no matter what Peter Bradshaw says.

Three months! You must have done something in that time. No? Oh well.

MHaha. I'm a blogging cliche, it seems. I think the key to this is not to attempt enormously long pieces every time. Writing being my livelihood (stop chuckling at the back), it can be hard to muster up enthusiasm for something that may never yield tangible returns.

But everyone loves link posts. Don't they?

So, here are two things that have great relevance to what I'm doing at the moment in my spare time (seriously, stop laughing).

'One time a guy handed me a picture of himself and he said. “Here’s a picture of me when I was younger.” Every picture of you is when you were younger.'

- Mitch Hedberg

(A good friend put me on to that late comic genius some time ago. Please go and watch this now).

Michael Chabon wrote a great piece recently for the New York Review of Books. I'm not sure about the legalities of pasting whole articles, so here's the link

And here's a taster:

Most great stories of adventure, from The Hobbit to Seven Pillars of Wisdom, come furnished with a map. That's because every story of adventure is in part the story of a landscape, of the interrelationship between human beings (or Hobbits, as the case may be) and topography. Every adventure story is conceivable only with reference to the particular set of geographical features that in each case sets the course, literally, of the tale. But I think there is another, deeper reason for the reliable presence of maps in the pages, or on the endpapers, of an adventure story, whether that story is imaginatively or factually true. We have this idea of armchair traveling, of the reader who seeks in the pages of a ripping yarn or a memoir of polar exploration the kind of heroism and danger, in unknown, half-legendary lands, that he or she could never hope to find in life.

This is a mistaken notion, in my view. People read stories of adventure—and write them—because they have themselves been adventurers. Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped only with the fragmentary map—marked here there be tygers and mean kid with air rifle—that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading, and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children.

My understanding is that it's part of a larger nonfiction work, out in October. If you enjoyed it, I'd recommend, ooh, everything he's ever written. But maybe Maps And Legends is a good place to start. (Actually start wherever you like. Stand up for yourself, why don't you)

And finally, I have not been unaware of the trend for images in blog posts. Never shall it be said that this writer is loath to dive into this new fad. Observe:

(thank you, As She Was)

Finally finally. A nice bit of scabrous political comedy never hurt anyone. Click the picture to order your copy. Feel free to order me one and all:

Right. That's enough to be getting on with. Maybe I'll keep this up for a while. In which case, there'll have to be a post detailing how awful Wes Anderson's adaptation of Fantastic Mr Fox looks (and sounds). But not right now. I'm still too upset.