Monthly Archives: March 2009

Syllabus: Columbia University, Writing R6212, Spring 2009 (Prof. Zadie Smith)

Martin Schneider writes:
Zadie Smith is teaching a weekly fiction seminar at Columbia University this semester under the title “Sense and Sensibility.”
A local bookstore called Book Culture, which I believe for years was called Labyrinth, has posted 10 of the 15 books that Smith is assigning her charges. Here they are:
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace
Catholics, Brian Moore
The Complete Stories, Franz Kafka
Crash, J.G. Ballard
An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel
Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, David Lodge
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
My Loose Thread, Dennis Cooper
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Loser, Thomas Bernhard
The Book of Daniel, E.L. Doctorow
A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
Reader’s Block, David Markson
Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov
The Quiet American, Graham Greene
Pretty good list! I see she hit favorites of Benjamin (Spark), Jonathan (Bernhard), and myself (Wallace). I wonder what the other five are? If you’re taking the course and happen to see this, drop us a line!
Addendum: Book Culture has now come through with the full list. Thanks very much!

We Like David Foster Wallace Because of … Evolutionary Psychology?

Benjamin Chambers writes:
A spate of actual work has kept me from commenting on the recent Steven Millhauser and Italo Calvino stories in The New Yorker, let alone the new excerpt from David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel that appears in the March 9, 2009 issue. But it hasn’t stopped me from running across this breathless announcement that Wallace’s novel will be published next year, along with the surprising (and not entirely reliable) announcement that his first novel, Infinite Jest, is among the 10 longest novels ever written. (Here’s the complete list.)
Why do we humans like narrative, anyway? Professor William Flesch tackled this question in his 2008 book, Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components in Fiction, which was apparently one of James Wood’s favorite books of 2008. According to Flesch, his book uses “ideas of evolutionary psychology and particularly evolutionary game theory to explain why narratives work.”
Wallace, I suspect, would’ve been intrigued.

Watchmen Indulges in Alternate History, So Can New Yorker Covers

Martin Schneider writes:
I noted earlier that, to judge from the Twitter posts I’m seeing, Watchmen fans are none too pleased with The New Yorker right now, and boy oh boy does that continue to be true. But really, Watchmen fans should remember The New Yorker‘s guts in being the first national magazine to put Dr. Manhattan on its cover, way back in 1985.

Video Gem: Updike and Cheever on Cavett, 1981

Martin Schneider writes:
I have it running on my computer even as I post this, in my haste to alert you to it, but Dick Cavett, on the space The New York Times allots to him, has posted the full telecast of the October 14, 1981, program of his show, which featured two of America’s finest writers, John Updike and John Cheever, in conversation together. Watch and be enthralled. (Here’s the prior post, which led to this one.)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Updike on TV before. I find him very appealing; it’s a shame he wasn’t on television more during the 1990s. A commenter on the page notes that they discuss the New Yorker submission process, but I can’t vouch for it. I look forward to the day that Jimmy Fallon invites Cormac McCarthy and Marilynne Robinson on for a chat. Until then, Cavett remains the undisputed champion! And even if he weren’t, the decision to unite a purple jacket and a green shirt would make him champ anyway.
Addendum: The question pertaining to The New Yorker is in the very last minute—well worth a peek!

“Campaign Trail” Junkies Rejoice as Plaudits Descend

Martin Schneider writes:
Emily and I have written about our obsessive and undying devotion to The New Yorker‘s stellar political broadcast “The Campaign Trail,” which provided us with comfort, solace, and delight from Iowa all the way to Chicago’s Grant Park and beyond. (I even saw the main recurring members in concert! Sort of.)
According to FishbowlNY, the MPA Digital Awards has named as “Best Podcast Series” of 2008 The New Yorker‘s “The Campaign Trail”! We’d like to congratulate (this is off the top of my head) John Cassidy, Elizabeth Kolbert, David Remnick, Jane Mayer, Jeffrey Toobin, George Packer, Hendrik Hertzberg, Ryan Lizza, and above all, the podcast’s cheerful, focused, and curious moderator, Dorothy Wickenden, for this distinction. I regret if I left anyone out. The year of amusing and insightful talk was a joy to behold.

Essential Comedy Tome to Grill Chast, Sedaris, Clowes, Handey, Others

Martin Schneider writes:
Finally, a post that doesn’t mention Tw****r! I think I’ve discovered the 2009 release I’m looking forward to most. A gentleman named Mike Sacks has compiled a book of interviews with twenty-five of the funniest writers on earth, due for publication in July from F+W Press.
The book will feature interviews with familiar New Yorker contributors Roz Chast, Daniel Clowes, Jack Handey, and David Sedaris, as well as:
Paul Feig (Freaks and Geeks)
Merrill Markoe (Late Night with David Letterman)
Dick Cavett (The Dick Cavett Show)
Larry Wilmore (The Daily Show)
Irving Brecher (Marx Brothers)
Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show)
Robert Smigel (TV Funhouse)
Dan Mazer (Ali G, Borat)
Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day)
Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H)
Mitch Hurwitz (Arrested Development)
Dave Barry (syndicated column)
Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket)
Bruce Jay Friedman (The Heartbreak Kid)
Marshall Brickman (Annie Hall, Manhattan)
George Meyer (The Simpsons)
Al Jaffee (MAD Magazine)
Allison Silverman (The Colbert Report)
Buck Henry (Get Smart, The Graduate)
Stephen Merchant (Extras)
Todd Hanson (The Onion)
(Apparently New Yorker editor Susan Morrison is involved as well.)
I feel confident in guaranteeing that if you collected that group in a room, nobody’d ask, “So when do the funny people show up?”—except in jest.
Best of all, you can read the chapters for Handler, Chast, Friedman, and Clowes in full on the book’s website, which also has generous excerpts of every single other chapter.
As a comedy enthusiast with a serious weakness for artist interviews (Paris Review, Inside the Actor’s Studio, you name it), I’m genuinely excited, as you can well imagine.

Not Just Inane Chatter, Twitter also Brings Facts

Martin Schneider writes:
User @alexbarkett (for that is the convention) tweets: “For everyone who was wondering, the audio prelude to all New Yorker podcasts is a song by Isolée called Schrapnell.” I checked it out: it does sound right! (Compare.) A back and forth with Mr. Barkett confirmed that he knows the full song and that it only applies to the “Out Loud” podcasts.
Note that when I tried to confirm this fact on Google, I came up bupkes.