There’s a lot to love about the Wilsey story. (Yes, this has something to do with The New Yorker.) If you’re just joining us, this Voice piece by Chris Tamarri might be a good place to start:

After four years away, Sean Wilsey returned from Italy and ate lunch with his father. He had spent that time in a sort of emotional deprogramming center called Amity, the latest in a series of last resorts his parents hoped would dissuade him from a life of drug use and disillusionment. Oh the Glory of It All is, among other things, a travelogue of wasted youth and attempts at reclamation. First was prep school at St. Mark’s, where academics were a footnote to drinking, and the exploded bag of discarded beer cans on the seniors-only quad was an “allegorical tableau.” Inevitable expulsion led to another school, Woodhall, and a collection of castaways indifferent to the school’s philosophy of “mak[ing] up educational lacunae.” Amity is the one that sticks, though; Wilsey claims to “have never experienced emotions so powerfully, mysteriously, unwillingly, and eventually, gratefully.”

They ate Italian, naturally, father and son, and Al Wilsey delighted in making his son speak to the waiter… You’ve got to finish this.

I’m out of town, emdashers (think Dickinson, Post, Bronte, Carr, Pankhurst, H. W. Fowler, and a haberdashers’ convention in a very unconventional arrangement), so if you want me, look under your bootsoles or, more hygienically, through the archives. If I have time, I’ll blog somewhere waiting for you.

Family Guise: Emotional rescue—The adventures of a not-so-fortunate son [VV]
From “Song of Myself” [Favorite Poem Project]

Me in the company of this godforsaken Cartier ad, in the middle of my screen while I’m trying to read The New Yorker online (I’m traveling) for you nice people. The worst part about it, even worse than the fact that it’s all in my face, following me everywhere I go like the eyes of the Mona Lisa, is the gratuitous number and clashing array of typefaces it uses: bold, italic, “fancy-pants.” (When I’ve read more of my stunning Print magazine, I’ll know what to call these things.) Cartier, we’re breaking up. I have a breakfast date somewhere else.

Read all about it here.

Also, I found this story about the scholarly/waitressing/boxing career of New Yorker staffer (or something—it doesn’t really say) Suzie Guillette mesmerizing and uneasy-making; it raises a whole passel of questions I don’t really feel like writing about. I present some of it—originally printed in her hometown paper, the Attleboro Sun Chronicle—for your deep thoughts:

NEW YORK — The pretty young woman hits, cuffs and clutches a 68-year-old man while another man shouts at her to do more of it, and better.

A group of tough-looking men, boys and several women, encircle, wait, smile, shout or stare — all waiting to follow her.

Into the ring.

Suzie Guillette, 28, Attleboro High School Class of 1994, is sparring in a Bronx gym with an ex-New York Golden Gloves champion named Willie Soto who is old enough — and kind enough — to be her grandfather.
…
Elbow to elbow with this slice of rugged humanity stands Attleboro’s Guillette.

Blond, blue-eyed, slender and academic, Guillette will spar, box, skip rope, and then write about all of these memorable encounters by April.

She studies boxers by becoming one. It’s her master’s thesis.

Guillette, who majored in philosophy at George Washington University, is a second-year graduate student now at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers.

Four to five days a week, she takes the 20-minute drive from her idyllic ivy-covered campus to two large, concrete and fluorescent-lighted rooms smattered with old fight posters and dried blood.

It is a repository of tattooed dreams, swollen lips and bloodied ambition.

And Guillette couldn’t be happier.
…
When she returned to Sarah Lawrence [from the Czech Republic] for the second year of her master’s program, she still entertained thoughts of immersing herself in Rwanda.

Then, after a bizarre meeting in a laundry with a neighborhood man who was looking for women to model his line of underwear for black and Latino women — “His wife and daughter were right there,” Guillette said — she thought, perhaps, she should write about the colorful people who inhabit the Bronx.

By September’s end, however, she had found the Morris Park Gym and had begun renewing her love affair with boxing.

“I realized it was perfect for my thesis, a very manageable idea,” Guillette said. “It was really fun, and the other part of me had really enjoyed boxing in Prague. So, I said I might as well do something that I love, two hours a day, four days a week.”

Her thesis adviser agreed, and encouraged her new pursuit.

As Guillette developed her jab and her cross, she also developed her hook — five essays that will serve as chapters in her planned 100-plus page thesis.

“There will be four or five essays in totally different styles,” Guillette said.
…
A third piece will be on dishing out and receiving punishment, itself, gleaned from the denizens of Morris Park.

“It’s a survey piece on how it feels to be hit,” Guillette said. “There are so many different people, so many different levels. How do you feel to be hit and then hitting someone?”
…
Boxing has gotten into her blood like ink did when she did a stint at The New Yorker magazine; when she was writing proposals; when she studied writing abroad.
…
She plans to modify her pieces with hopes of getting them published in The New Yorker or as stand-alone essays.

She is writing sample chapters and seeking a literary agent. If she returns to Europe, she will work on a book.
…
Down the road, she is entertaining the idea of applying for a license to train young girls how to box.

What’s there to say, really, except make cracks about how you better learn to get comfortable being hit and then hitting someone if you’re going to make it in the word game? I can’t even say anything about interdisciplinary studies at Sarah Lawrence, seeing as I almost went there. This is so obviously going to be a book, and why not? It’s been done well before. Maybe she’ll get a chapter into the magazine; hey, I’ve had plenty of boxing fantasies myself, though I don’t like getting blows to the head. Damage to the aqualine nose aside, though, I hope she gets signed sooner rather than later—better to have a million-dollar contract than be a million dollar baby.

Bard of the Rings [Attleboro, Mass., Sun Chronicle]
Embracing the Housewife Within [Guillette, Sexing the Political]

From the Guardian, Seymour Hersh (yes, I could call him Sy, but don’t you think it’s sort of silly to call journalists you don’t know by their cute nicknames? Not to mention members of the Cabinet. I mean, I don’t have a great deal of respect for Condoleezza Rice, but she has a last name—what is this, women’s tennis?—and it’s not Condi. At least it’s not Condi to me; Bush, that’s another story) on the unknown unknowns of the Abu Ghraib scandal:

It’s been over a year since I published a series of articles in the New Yorker outlining the abuses at Abu Ghraib. There have been at least 10 official military investigations since then—none of which has challenged the official Bush administration line that there was no high-level policy condoning or overlooking such abuse. The buck always stops with the handful of enlisted army reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company whose images fill the iconic Abu Ghraib photos with their inappropriate smiles and sadistic posing of the prisoners.

It’s a dreary pattern. The reports and the subsequent Senate proceedings are sometimes criticised on editorial pages. There are calls for a truly independent investigation by the Senate or House. Then, as months pass with no official action, the issue withers away, until the next set of revelations revives it.

There is much more to be learned. What do I know? A few things stand out. I know of the continuing practice of American operatives seizing suspected terrorists and taking them, without any meaningful legal review, to interrogation centres in south-east Asia and elsewhere. I know of the young special forces officer whose subordinates were confronted with charges of prisoner abuse and torture at a secret hearing after one of them emailed explicit photos back home. The officer testified that, yes, his men had done what the photos depicted, but they—and everybody in the command—understood such treatment was condoned by higher-ups…. What else do I know?
Keep reading.

Categories: Hersh, NYer

It may be time for the many eminent Luddites of verse to steel themselves and snap in their AirPort cards, and not on their portable Remingtons (that wouldn’t work at all):

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 23, 2005 — The Academy of American Poets has unveiled a completely revamped, redesigned, and expanded version of its award-winning website, www.poets.org. Tree Swenson, the Academy’s Executive Director, said, “More poems, more articles, more links, more ways to immerse yourself in poetry—welcome to the brand new Poets.org.”

In April 2005, Poets.org received 1.15 million visits, 570,000 unique visitors, and 7.8 million hits, with an average visit length of over 13 minutes. Poets.org is the most highly trafficked nonprofit poetry site on the web, according to Alexa.com, the web information service from Amazon.com. Poets.org offers nearly 2,000 poems, over 500 poet biographies, 400 essays and interviews, 150 audio recordings, lesson plans for teachers, a poetry gift shop, discussion forums, poetry news, events, and more. In the coming months, even more poetry, prose, poet biographies, and features will be added to Poets.org.

The site redesign includes a fresh new look, a beefed-up structure, improved navigation and search functions, revamped message boards and discussion forums, and new internal linkages. The site also features new technology, such as a php database and open-source technology servers, that will make the site up to three times faster. Poets.org is being redesigned with the assistance of Ruder Finn Interactive and Juxta Digital.

Robin Beth Schaer, the Academy’s web coordinator, noted that the new Poets.org will give readers access to an even deeper appreciation of poetry. “Our readers will see the rich connections between poets—influences and associations, movements and debates. They will discover the writers who have shaped American poetry in the past and those who are shaping it now.” Web associate Nathan Hill said, “Poets.org’s breadth and depth of content is extraordinary, but we think the site is so popular because it offers content and context. or example, if you’re interested in John Ashbery, Poets.org offers not only his photo, bio, and poems, but also an interview, audio recordings, a DVD, related poets, as well as external links.”

Swenson noted that the Academy of American Poets first went online in 1993—”before Amazon, eBay, Google, or Yahoo even existed”—with a modest brochure-type website. Two years later, in 1995, the Academy’s site was expanded to include poems, biographies, quizzes, and discussion forums. The domain Poets.org was registered by the Academy in 1996, and the first version of the current site was launched in April 1997 and subsequently redesigned in May 2000.

Good news, but a fresh new look, a beefed-up structure, revamped message boards? Sounds like Clara Bow and Sinclair Lewis in a meadow rendezvous. Block that metaphor!

By the way, at press time, the “Top 10 Most Popular Poets on Poets.org” were:

1. Langston Hughes
2. Emily Dickinson
3. Robert Frost
4. Walt Whitman
5. Shel Silverstein
6. Dylan Thomas
7. Sylvia Plath
8. Maya Angelou
9. William Carlos Williams
10. Gwendolyn Brooks

(Popularity based on Poets.org user searches)

See something you like? Then buy it! I mean him or her. Some of them come awful cheap.

Most Popular Nonprofit Poetry Website, Poets.org, Re-Launched by Academy of American Poets [eMediaWire]
Is it O.K. to Be a Luddite? [Thomas Pynchon in the NYTBR, 1984. “Except maybe for Brainy Smurf, it’s hard to imagine anybody these days wanting to be called a literary intellectual, though it doesn’t sound so bad if you broaden the labeling to, say, ‘people who read and think.’ Being called a Luddite is another matter…”]

Here’s a story from the Times of London about the whole messy shebang o’ worms. If you’re from the East Coast and aren’t so fascinated by Sean, Dede, Al, Pat Montandon, and the rest, you’re missing out on an excellent soap opera and, much more important, a kick-ass memoir. Don’t put down the West Coast just because it has movie stars, drunken Paul Giamattis (while in character), and insanely steep hills! There are things to love about California, and this is one of them.

Tycoon’s son pens revenge on ‘wicked’ stepmum [Times online]

Categories: Wilsey

And speaking of the Algonquin!

Take the Apple iPod, add a best-selling novel – Ian McEwen’s “Saturday” will do nicely – and mix in the venerable Algonquin Hotel. The result: a marketing gimmick with high-tech overtones for a low-tech product.

The 174-room Algonquin on West 45th Street, renowned for its fat, gossipy literary history through the decades – a history that features Dorothy Parker, New Yorker editor William Shawn and many others – now offers a battery-operated take on reading, or, rather, listening: Guests will be able to take a loaner iPod to bed, preloaded by staff with the audio book of their choice.

The iPods – there are two on hand to start – will be loaned at no cost on a first-come, first-served basis, and guests can choose from a selection of classics and current bestsellers.

I have, since my last post, scored an interview with Matilda. You’ll read it as soon as I write it, which will happen just after I have it.

Cool 2 Use [Stephen Williams, Newsday]

Putting the “humane” into doctor of humane letters, Seymour Hersh speaks truth to youth (from a piece in yesterday’s Newsday). I’m curious—how may of the 6,000 people listening were booing, roughly speaking, and how many were cheering? Making actions the subject of a sentence has a way of smoothing over these little distinctions. Hersh’s final remarks remind me of those made by my own college commencement speaker—this was then-president Ellen Futter, who was about to leave Morningside Heights for her fancy new job as president of the Natural History Museum. Anyway, as we shivered in the cold May rain and our grandparents got dripped on, Futter spoke to us of a world full of unfairness and atrocities, a grim economy and an uncertain future, a shredded environment and general bad times all around. I prefer the specificity of Hersh’s comments, which give you something to work with other than a state of mind like the one that promped Woody Allen to say, “I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody’s.”

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Journalist Seymour Hersh described U.S. soldiers in Iraq as “victims,” eliciting jeers and cheers from an audience of about 6,000 people at a college commencement on Monday.

Hersh, speaking to graduates of Fairleigh Dickinson University and their families, said American soldiers are “doing an admirable job under terrible conditions” but don’t know much about the war they are fighting.

“They are as much victims as the people they are sometimes forced to kill,” Hersh said.

The comment was greeted by a loud expletive from one member of the audience. Booing and more swearing followed, but other audience members stood and cheered.

Hersh, who was among the first to report on the abuse of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison, was awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

He spoke for about five minutes, introducing himself as “a huge critic of my government,” but praising the United States for allowing dissent.

He concluded his five-minute speech by saying, “And I’m sorry for the disquieting comments, but that’s what it’s all about, folks. Happy graduation.”

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Hersh is a regulator [sic, but what a sic! who’s watching the watchers’ watchers?] contributor to The New Yorker magazine and the author of eight books.

At college commencement, Hersh describes U.S. soldiers as ‘victims’ [AP, via Newsday]
Hersh’s 2003 Columbia J-school commencement address [Columbia]

Categories: Hersh

For once I’m all current and Today’s Papersy—in today’s Times, a piece on Tina Brown’s “struggles post-New Yorker” and so on: “But when she left The New Yorker for Talk, her miraculous touch seemed to desert her. It was one thing, she now admits, to dust off an old franchise and quite another to build from the ground up.”

I’ve always been scrupulous about reading every word of the books I review, so my heart is lighter now that I’ve actually read Judy Sierra and Marc Brown’s Wild About Books—whose big award I casually raved about last month. And I’m glad to say it’s colorful, clever, literary, and winsome. It takes about ten minutes to read if you’re standing in Spoonbill & Sugartown as I was, half-listening to the tipsy art-world conversations of the post-book-party staff and petting the store’s pendulous striped cat. If you were reading the book aloud, though, it might take as many as three years to really exhaust its entertainment value.

Also, received: Optic Nerve: 30 Postcards by Adrian Tomine, which includes some of his New Yorker work. It’s so good I can’t stand it.