tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34731422012-01-25T12:48:43.955-08:00fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.comBlogger2111100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-88800110857449344242012-01-16T15:53:00.000-08:002012-01-25T12:48:43.963-08:00

Hi! Here's the material you'll need for Roadside Oddities: Novels of the 50s (ENGL347) Whitman College Spring 2012: Syllabus On the Wiki Our calendar of due dates and readings

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-11409171872977325212012-01-16T14:53:00.000-08:002012-01-24T14:17:00.757-08:00

Here's the material you'll need for Introduction to Creative Writing, ENGL 150-B, Whitman College, Spring 2012! The syllabus Our calendar of readings, events, and due dates Writing Exercises Supplementary Stories, Poems, and Essays Worth Your While

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-50159354058284885742012-01-11T12:14:00.000-08:002012-01-16T14:53:58.993-08:00

Jeanette Winterson's memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? offers up a funny, incisive chapter, "English Literature A-Z," where Nabokov appears throughout. (She is not a fan.) Favorite bit appears after the fold: I had two English teachers. The main one was a sexy wildman who eventually married one of our classmates when she managed to turn eighteen. He said that Nabokov was truly

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-80271360488800397192011-11-28T14:55:00.001-08:002011-11-28T15:22:52.754-08:00

The fine art of grafitti removal

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-36151029552020940642011-11-28T14:53:00.001-08:002011-11-28T15:24:00.705-08:00

A day for Craig Baldwin's Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-2356258069215300992011-11-26T07:40:00.001-08:002011-11-26T07:43:20.138-08:00

It's always delightful to see Nabokov referenced. It is particularly delightful to see him referenced in a review of the new Muppets movie: When Gary brings his ultra-perky girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), on a trip to Los Angeles, Walter tags along too, in great anticipation of visiting the Muppets' studio and meeting, in Vladimir Nabokov's phrase, "beings akin to him."

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-62099539144536031502011-11-18T09:44:00.001-08:002011-11-19T09:50:34.640-08:00

I'm a huge fan of formal constraints, and years ago was pleased by finding this bit in Chip Kidd's graphic-design bildungsroman The Cheese Monkeys: Always remember: Limits are possibilities. That sounds like Orwell, I know. It’s not – it’s Patton. Formal restrictions, contrary to what you might think, free you up by allowing you to concentrate on purer ideas. As graphic designers you want the

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-39141982049731022162011-10-29T12:04:00.000-07:002011-10-29T12:21:48.398-07:00

Little by little, bit by bit, I'll be reintroducing bits of Nabokovilia from the old site. Here is the first (additional bits of Martin Amis Nabokovilia available here.) From The Information: Even when he was in familiar company (his immediate family, for instance) it sometimes seemed to Richard that those gathered in the room were not quite authentic selves -- that they had gone away and

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-29568398798873943672011-10-27T08:14:00.001-07:002012-01-12T11:16:44.307-08:00

Was about to pack for gym & found this thing in the bag. If I had a moment and was the sort of person who makes Sweet Smell of Success references to my cat I would have said, "The cat's in the bag and the bag's going to the gym." But I am not.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-21020465679315838492011-10-19T08:43:00.000-07:002011-10-19T08:43:12.496-07:00

Nicholson Baker nods at Nabokov in his Steve Jobs eulogy for the New Yorker: We’ve lost our techno-impresario and digital dream granter. Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, in a letter, that when he’d finished a novel he felt like a house after the movers had carried out the grand piano. That’s what it feels like to lose this world-historical personage. The grand piano is gone. Read the rest of the

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-70513575504846043292011-10-14T19:37:00.000-07:002011-10-14T19:40:19.156-07:00

...Which is, as one of its characters takes pains to tell another, more ignorant character, quite a bit of a different thing than "bird-watching." (One is reminded of the American editor who thought the last line of Vladimir Nabokov's "Bend Sinister" was "A good night for nothing," rather than the author's extremely correct "A good night for mothing.") (The rest of the review over is here.)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-41787383998357555612011-10-12T13:13:00.000-07:002011-10-12T13:13:10.936-07:00

Awesome sighting! Nabokov in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead -- via the Nabokv-ListServ. More details at the new and really cool-looking Nabokov-minded blog A Distant Northern Land.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-68558810762735153072011-10-10T11:38:00.000-07:002011-10-10T11:38:54.189-07:00

The Pio, Whitman College's student newspaper, did a super nice write-up of the reading. I talk about how I think Wal-Mart is awesome for longer than maybe I should. The photo is lifted straight off the newspaper. I look as though I am holding a little hand puppet up to the mike, but actually I am gesturing for dramatic emphasis. Also: Selected Shorts aired Corddry's reading of "Customer

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0345 Boyer Ave, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA46.0715857 -118.329899346.0605697 -118.34964029999999 46.0826017 -118.3101583tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-84194321388220699572011-10-06T11:16:00.000-07:002011-10-06T11:16:24.401-07:00

‎Selected Shorts is totally broadcasting "Customer Service at the Karaoke Don Quixote" this weekend! (http://www.selectedshorts.org/fall-2011-selected-shorts-radio-schedule/). Yay!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.5217853 -74.3218301 40.9069203 -73.69011610000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-29318007740684906202011-10-03T17:40:00.001-07:002012-01-12T11:16:44.292-08:00

The view from the couch.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-65572488129535469782011-09-28T12:50:00.000-07:002011-09-28T12:50:13.080-07:00

I read things tomorrow! (Thursday, 9/29/2011, at 7 pm)! Come hear me read things to you if you are in the Walla Walla area and want to hear creepy/funny things that I read to you! Details at http://www.whitman.edu/whitman/index.cfm?objectid=8C3CA455-AF90-2940-8392F3EC3A46B2AE

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-69063223061757092242011-09-19T17:24:00.001-07:002011-09-19T17:56:48.798-07:00

Sadly out of business

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-79025596253437205362011-09-17T10:57:00.000-07:002012-01-12T11:16:44.344-08:00

"This season, all of our stage performances at Symphony Space will feature a commissioned short story. For BASS 2011, we commissioned a story from Juan Martinez and it will be performed by Cristin Milioti. You may remember Cristin from last season on 30 Rock where she played comedian Abby Flynn, Liz Lemon’s foil." I'm psyched beyond the telling! (Also, and by the way, the short thing that I

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-55983391253390013172011-09-14T13:32:00.000-07:002011-10-29T12:23:53.118-07:00

From the opening to Sam Savage's Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife: I had always imagined that my life story, if and when I wrote it, would have a great first line: something lyric like Nabokov's "Lolita, light of my fire, fire of my loins"; or if I could not do lyric, then something sweeping like Tolstoy's "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-87593848576650422292011-09-09T12:52:00.001-07:002012-01-12T11:16:44.352-08:00

Walla Walla back alley!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-38706884531148915882011-09-07T18:58:00.000-07:002011-09-07T18:58:21.595-07:00

From the 2011 Autumn issue of the American Scholar -- Boyd on Nabokov as a psychologist: Vladimir Nabokov once dismissed as “preposterous” the French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet’s assertions that his novels eliminated psychology: “The shifts of levels, the interpenetration of successive impressions and so forth belong of course to psychology,” Nabokov said, “—psychology at its best.” Later asked,

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-32393828473922403472011-08-29T18:40:00.000-07:002011-11-18T09:28:08.205-08:00

I'll be teaching three courses at Whitman College this semester. Here are the syllabi! ENG 178A: Introduction to Fiction ENG 150: Introduction to Creative Writing ENG 250: Intermediate Creative Writing: Fiction I'm also creating a page of supplementary reading material for all three courses, which will be accessible here. ENG178A: Introduction to Fiction Syllabus Calendar Wiki assignment

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave, Walla Walla, WA 99362-2083, USA46.0715857 -118.329899346.0605697 -118.34964029999999 46.0826017 -118.3101583tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-76877998033835143012011-06-15T10:17:00.000-07:002011-06-28T14:19:58.790-07:00

Dear ENG 232 Summer 2011 students, You will find links to material here. Be sure to e-mail me at marti575@unlv.nevada.edu if you have any questions. Nabokov on Kafka Group presentation requirements The paper requirements The syllabus Best, Juan

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-4454110466871975422011-04-27T14:10:00.000-07:002011-04-27T14:10:01.565-07:00

Hi! You'll find the assignment sheet at this address. Remember that the David Foster Wallace link is not working: you'll find a shorter version of the same piece here. You can always reach me at marti575@unlv.nevada.edu -- I'm looking forward to your essays. Best, Juan

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-15183087670950608572011-04-07T09:42:00.000-07:002011-04-07T09:42:31.390-07:00

The second half of the walk across Vegas is up at City Life! Photos are here. I'll be updating the map soon.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-82250961734994885252011-04-05T07:16:00.000-07:002011-04-05T16:49:29.293-07:00

Two nice write-ups of the Getty event: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/selected-shorts-celebrates-the-written-and-spoken-word/ and http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/03/selected-shorts-at-the-getty-starring-tim-curry.html Nate Corddry did an awesome job reading the piece, which was written years ago as a lark in the dead hours when I managed a computer lab. Had I known, back then, that

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-43218980985651557652011-04-02T09:58:00.000-07:002011-04-02T09:58:34.267-07:00

In this month's Desert Companion, I tell you what sneakers to wear. Please note: This is a hiking issue! Do not miss the hikes, but wear hiking shoes. Do not wear the things I'm telling you to wear if you are planning on actually going around the Nevada wilderness (particularly the Nike Woodside, which though beautiful is from all accounts almost comically nonfunctional). The story is here and

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-87520210271546507472011-04-01T09:27:00.000-07:002011-04-01T09:27:15.362-07:00

Headin off soon to Hualapai & Charleston for the second leg of walking through Vegas! I'll be posting photos on Facebook and on Flickr. I'll be Tweeing, too!  (See the article for the first leg here. See also map embedded below: I'll be updating it soon.) View The Vegas Pedestrian in a larger map

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-68390810500772686012011-03-25T09:55:00.000-07:002011-03-31T09:03:55.451-07:00

Sarah and I got our engagement photos done via the kind work of three Canadians: our friend Leah Bailly and the two Vancouver-based photographers who flew to Vegas for a wedding-photography convention and wanted to do an editorial shoot in the desert and were looking for people about to get married. Here are the photos! And here are more photos! Thank you so much, Tegan and Bethany and Leah.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-30121632854606888802011-03-24T14:02:00.000-07:002011-03-24T14:03:24.812-07:00

Julio, one of the nice folk I met along the way. I'll be leaving Vegas soon, and will be walking it from west to east by way of farewell. The first leg of the journey is up at Vegas CityLife. Here's a sample: Desert Foothills Road teemed with folk, however, to a point where it felt like a parody of active pedestrian life. I walked in the company of dog-walkers and children and joggers. If you

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com1W Charleston Blvd & S Hualapai Way, Las Vegas, NV 89135, USA36.1590379 -115.314193936.1547069 -115.3214894 36.1633689 -115.30689840000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-13252508208976618662011-03-10T08:51:00.000-08:002011-03-10T08:51:54.488-08:00

COMMENTARY: Hey, Man, I Totally Get It; I'd Watch A 2-Hour 'Biggest Loser' Special, Too (BY A COLLECTION OF NABOKOV'S SHORT STORIES). Excerpt: "Do you think you're the first educated person to choose reality TV over a series of long, exhaustive nights desperately trying to grasp whatever it is Nabokov was going for in "The Wood-Sprite"?"The rest at http://www.theonion.com/articles/

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-40139392559888581322011-03-07T09:14:00.000-08:002011-03-07T09:31:57.951-08:00

This bit is actually likely not Nabokovilia, but there given that King has nodded at Nabokov before, there is a slim chance that it  might be. Here it is, from "Fair Extension" (in the collection Full Dark, No Stars): "No, no, no! This isn't some half-assed morality tale. I'm a business-man, not a character out of 'The Devil and Daniel Webster.' All I'm saying is that your happiness is in your

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-90994760962619105942011-03-04T12:59:00.000-08:002011-03-04T13:02:10.354-08:00

The great Maurice Couturier on the difficult translation and nontranslation decisions made for the upcoming third volume of Nabokov's collected works in France for Gallimard (via the Nabokv-L forum): A great pity, of course. The translations were revised, sometimes in depth, but that was not enough. For volume III, I will personally revise all the translations. "Ada" raises a different problem:

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-75312439084704272142011-03-01T10:51:00.000-08:002011-03-01T10:51:03.205-08:00

Collated from the Strong Opinions interviews and the Boyd biographies, and available here: http://mubi.com/lists/7666# (via Maud Newton).

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-55853281700807941902011-03-01T10:32:00.000-08:002011-03-01T10:38:24.209-08:00

Over at the Desert Companion, I tell Las Vegas to cheer up, though possibly in a way that may make the city more depressed than it was originally. Which is how it goes for pep talks sometimes. Open publication - Free publishing - More art Also! I tell you what to wear (along with the ever fabulous duo of Christie Moeller and Sara Nunn). Wear it! Or else! Bonus we-tell-you-what-to-wear at the

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0E Tropicana Ave & S Pecos Rd, Paradise, NV 89121, USA36.0999902 -115.101130136.0956557 -115.1084256 36.1043247 -115.09383460000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-87598662320058777502011-03-01T08:55:00.000-08:002011-03-01T08:55:51.123-08:00

From the New York Post's Required Reading (via the Nabokv-L forum): Cleaning Nabokov’s House by Leslie Daniels (Touchstone) If you’ve ever moved into a place before evidence of the previous residents has been expunged, maybe you can identify with what happens to Barb Barrett in Daniels’ debut novel. After leaving a lousy marriage and losing custody of her kids, Barb rents an upstate house where

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-698229009148985832011-02-04T15:20:00.000-08:002011-02-04T15:20:50.838-08:00

Go to this month's Desert Companion for the magazine's terrific Best-of-Las-Vegas feature, stay for me telling you what to wear on Valentine's Day and me telling you who's the best tailor in the city. (The latter has a totally unnecessary "Wire" reference, the former a totally necessary sexytime reference.) Open publication - Free publishing - More arts

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-75040018796438309472011-01-29T14:13:00.000-08:002011-01-29T14:16:17.344-08:00

Anyone interested in Ada is urged to visit Ada Online: it includes the text of the novel and professor Boyd's annotations. The site is accurate, beautifully organized, rich with insight and information, and is in every regard everything this particular page is not--which is to say that Ada Online is not A monstrous, incomplete, and (most likely) inaccurate log of the literature found in Nabokov

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-64696388096403001682011-01-29T10:58:00.000-08:002011-01-29T10:59:26.727-08:00

Lots of interesting, substantive, historically relevant and contextually appropriate stuff in this article. Here is a snippet that is none of those things but is jaw-dropping nonetheless: Over the chessboard, Lanz confided a dark secret that Nabokov told biographer Field: the memorably dapper professor led a double life. On weekends, he drove to the country to participate in orgies with “

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-59812316865552141222011-01-29T08:17:00.000-08:002011-01-29T08:17:14.523-08:00

From Theo Schell-Lambert's "The Depthless Bookshelf" in the 11 January 2011 issue of The Believer: Interestingly, the Kindle itself pops repeatedly in the ads, even after it has done its work launching the flights of novelish fancy. And we start to get the sense that the device isn't just the departure point but perhaps a feature in these increasingly tangled scenes. And we start to wonder, then,

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-63702306040692480132011-01-28T10:06:00.000-08:002011-02-01T10:47:33.715-08:00

My favorite commentary so far on the now much-e-mailed-around, much-commented-upon NY Times Nabokov Theory on Butterfly Evolution is Vindicated comes from the formidable Brian Boyd -- Nabokov biographer, editor of Nabokov's Butterflies, and most recently writer of the awesome On The Origin of Stories: All the more kudos to Nabokov, then, for having developed a hypothesis over sixty years ago, in

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-7336429459675373102011-01-27T14:06:00.000-08:002011-01-27T14:06:57.870-08:00

Sociologist Gwen Sharp's Are You Better Of Buying $200 Shoes? makes a couple of really good points on the implicit class and economic assumptions of my H&M piece. The short answer is, Yes, you are better off buying $200-plus shoes. The slightly long answer is that the cultural capital embedded in the suggestion that someone invest in quality footwear does not translate neatly into a disregard

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-66154252870475317342011-01-20T12:01:00.000-08:002011-01-20T12:01:41.942-08:00

Go to the Desert Companion to read me telling Las Vegas to cheer up. Read!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-17478017975771182832011-01-18T09:23:00.000-08:002011-01-18T09:23:48.180-08:00

Here's the final color version of our save-the-date card.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0Lexington, KY, USA38.0317136 -84.495135937.7612856 -84.9620549 38.302141600000006 -84.02821689999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-20616210756466017352011-01-18T08:07:00.000-08:002011-01-29T10:10:44.970-08:00

I did these ads a few years back for UCF's writing center. Their motto was "Because writers need readers," so the goal was to find unexpected pairings that needed each other (just like writers need readers).

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-12346945485468018972011-01-09T10:59:00.000-08:002011-01-09T10:59:12.750-08:00

We've designed our Save-the-Date card, Sarah and me! For our very small Kentucky wedding! We're super proud of it, and we wanted to share the results. We used MS Word, for to we have no fancy Adobe products on our computer, and we were too bathroby for the graduate-lounge computer lab. Our Save-the-Date Wedding Card

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-8129759990359918792010-12-16T11:03:00.000-08:002010-12-16T11:05:46.588-08:00

Here's Ted Coconis's Ada cover! (Fawcett Crest, 1970)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-63595110882385674882010-12-15T12:32:00.000-08:002010-12-15T12:41:29.983-08:00

Just up at the Desert Companion: me telling you to go to the world's largest H&M and also me telling you what to resist and what not to resist when you're there. . The world's largest H&M, formerly an FAO Schwartz. Please note that horses are still part of the decor.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com03500 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89109, USA36.119059 -115.17623436.1147255 -115.18352949999999 36.1233925 -115.1689385tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-80933157369946131252010-12-02T09:23:00.000-08:002010-12-02T11:23:25.577-08:00

This paperback cover for Fawcett Crest's 1972 edition of Transparent Things features a Ted CoConis illustration. (CoConis also did a terrific one for 1970 Fawcett Crest Ada: I'll post that one in a bit -- it was in the old Fulmerford site. (That cover has since been used, Coconis's web site informs us, for a CD cover: Year Long Disaster.) More on CoConis and Nabokov in Paul Maliszewski's "

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-73323075206397969552010-11-24T12:27:00.000-08:002010-11-24T12:29:35.925-08:00

Terrific, previously unpublished 2006 Nabokov-centric interview with John Updike. (Via the Nabokv-L forum.) Favorite quote: "I didn’t realize we had this marvelous man in our midst." (On their overlapping years at Harvard in the early fifties, when Updike was a student and Nabokov a guest lecturer.) The interviewer is Lila Azam Zanganeh the author of the forthcoming The Enchanter: Nabokov and

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-28505230423321103012010-11-21T08:37:00.000-08:002010-11-21T08:37:47.330-08:00

Snob magazine (see this New Yorker "Shouts & Murmurs" for more on the magazine) to publish a selection of Nabokov's letters to Vera. (Don't speak Russian? The collected letters will be available in English in 2011. That's what you get for not knowing Russian: waiting!) More information here and here.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-83459143637495039262010-11-18T11:03:00.000-08:002010-11-18T11:04:16.352-08:00

From the Yale Daily News: “Get another boat to put your other foot on in case the writing boat sinks,” Helprin said.Helprin’s near-death experiences as a young man traveling through Europe were also critical to his development as a writer. When he was about 17, the New York-born Helprin was traveling in Europe. Helprin said he rode a motorcycle to Aix-en-Provence, France to impress a French

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-58260106702121337912010-11-18T10:50:00.000-08:002010-11-18T10:59:10.836-08:00

The Nabokov reference embedded below (from the short story "Jonathan and Lillian," collected in The Conference on Beautiful Moments) also appears, in slightly altered form, in Richard Burgin's Rivers Last Longer: "Eric!" she said, taking his hands, her cheeks coloring slightly after he kissed her. "This is Louise, fire in my loins, my sin, my soul, Louis -- the Great Garret, who deserves to

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-36079691184919931372010-11-03T08:51:00.000-07:002010-11-03T09:18:01.397-07:00

Hello! I'm going to be at a couple of different Vegas Valley Book Festival things this week. If you're around and want to say hello, please do. This Thursday, I'll be here: Thursday, November 4, 7:00 pm, Clark County Library Theater. The Perpetual Engine of Hope — Las Vegas Stories Inspired by Iconic Photographs. Local authors P Moss, Dayvid Figler, Oksana Marafioti, Megan Edwards, Alissa

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0Fremont St, Las Vegas, NV, USA36.1652998 -115.131531336.1479768 -115.16071380000001 36.1826228 -115.1023488tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-71275069483690806182010-10-31T07:41:00.000-07:002010-10-31T07:43:08.757-07:00

If you are going to a party and wondering what to wear -- and you are a person who (a) donated to Nevada Public Radio and is getting their magazine delivered, or (b) you are somewhere near a place in Vegas where you can pick up Desert Companion for free, or (c) you are on the Internet -- I tell you: Open publication - Free publishing - More food Also: are you thinking of getting someone

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0Las Vegas, NV, USA36.114646 -115.17281635.8373005 -115.639735 36.3919915 -114.705897tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-26422288221167662832010-10-06T14:37:00.000-07:002010-10-06T14:38:10.181-07:00

Hi! I'll be reading and talking, alongside some awesome writers, over at the Sudden Fiction Latino panel for the Latino Family and Book Festival taking place this weekend in Los Angeles. It's taking place over at California State University, Los Angeles, and our panel is on Saturday, October 9, at 2 pm, in room 136 of Salazar Hall. Stop in! Say hello! Note that Captain Adama is all about this

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-54774817436596460152010-09-28T12:02:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.768-07:00

Accidental Google-aided Nabokovilia. From Jonathan Ames's novel The Extra Man:Her apartment was on the first floor of a house on quiet dead-end in Princeton (it was called Humbert Street and some people in town believed that Nabokov, whose first American home was in Princeton, must have taken note of this when he would go for his constitutional walks), and Elaine had this fantasy of putting her

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com040.3537512, -74.658383540.3537512 -74.6583835tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-78852066340108797752010-09-28T11:46:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.784-07:00

Bored to Death's first episode of the second season (titled "Escape from the Dungeon") features a nice bit of Nabopop: When a female student smiles at first-time creative-writing instructor/second-time struggling novelist/bumbling Craigslist-advertising amateur detective Jonathan Ames, his friend (played by Zach Galifianakis) says, "Hello, Nabokov."(Episode available for streaming for free at the

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com040.65, -73.9540.65 -73.95tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-39888608368657184432010-09-20T13:36:00.000-07:002010-09-20T14:02:04.051-07:00

This year, the Vegas Valley Book Festival's Las Vegas Writes project asked some people -- me among them -- to write a short story based on an iconic Vegas photograph. My story is up at their site right now. It is called On Paradise, and you can read it over there.  There is an event associated with the project! Please attend. There is also a book! Please buy 20 copies to give to everyone you

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0Paradise Rd & E Twain Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89169, USA36.1213203 -115.154918536.1169873 -115.16221399999999 36.1256533 -115.147623tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-48818480400517874402010-09-20T13:12:00.000-07:002010-09-20T13:15:56.808-07:00

The September/October issue of the Desert Companion is out! And therein I once again tell you what to wear. You'll find the issue in all sorts of places in Las Vegas, but the story is also here at the Desert Companion site or below in this embedded thing: Open publication - Free publishing - More art

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-18341807042870942852010-08-02T15:56:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.800-07:00

The good people of New York's nod to Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark (via the Nabokv-L forum):

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com040.710964, -73.97822540.710964 -73.978225tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-39132551828491084952010-07-13T07:50:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.832-07:00

Pnin is the immigrant of Nabokov’s American novels. The main character is a Russian professor at an American college, and the novel is to a large extent about Russian culture misunderstood by Westerners. But it is also a truncated love story with a moral dilemma. Pnin himself is not Jewish but Mira, once Pnin’s beloved, is Jewish, and she died in Buchenwald. The story is punctuated by the tension

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-8003557503110074702010-07-12T17:03:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.870-07:00

From Stieg Larsson and the Mystery of His Fourth Novel:If you can't wait for more books from the dark Swedish novelist, visit the Stieg Larsson Classics thread on Twitter where writers come up with imaginary titles of classic lit like this tweet: "Nabokov's THE GIRL WHO WASN'T OLD ENOUGH FOR A DRAGON TATTOO."

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-87260228094818274042010-07-01T10:32:00.000-07:002010-07-01T10:32:52.548-07:00

The July/August issue of Desert Companion is out! And therein I tell you what to wear (I also recommended two additional items that had to be cut for space, but they're pasted below the issue if you're curious): The What-to-Wear Supplemental Items: 1.      The Hermes orange-and-pink cachemire belongs in the blazer’s pocket, though only a brief blush of color should be allowed to peek out: at

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-51324600951327251152010-06-23T19:20:00.000-07:002010-06-23T19:21:14.442-07:00

What a lovely voice. And this Otis Redding cover is my favorite left-field interpretation of a song since Keely Smith's Hard Day's Night.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-14364504350316513952010-06-22T13:16:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.898-07:00

From Ian Frazier's Marginal:Of special interest to readers of this magazine might be Vladimir Nabokov’s copy of Fifty-five Short Stories from The New Yorker, 1940-1950. Nabokov’s handwriting (in English) was small and fluid and precise; in books that he took exception to, such as a translation of “Madame Bovary” by Eleanor Marx Aveling, his correcting marginalia climbed all over the paragraphs

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com040.7142691, -74.005972940.7142691 -74.0059729tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-48164595740235379812010-06-15T20:00:00.000-07:002010-06-15T20:00:36.524-07:00

Vera Nabokov and a Bizzarrini Strada Photos of Dmitri and his family and his cars!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-68982933687546464912010-06-15T08:35:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.922-07:00

So also: some accidental Nabopop! Fujiya and Miyagi's Transparent Things.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-16607363370271532222010-06-15T08:30:00.000-07:002011-10-29T12:05:24.959-07:00

So I knew there was some Nabokovilia in Martin Amis's London Fields and The Information, but it wasn't till I visited the former and revisited the latter that I found even more. See page 303 of London Fields: Vladimir Nabokov, encouragingly, was a champion insomniac. He believed that this was the best way to divide people: those who slept and those who didn't. The great line in Transparent

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com051.5001524, -0.126236251.5001524 -0.1262362tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-39220724341651608462010-04-19T11:47:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.959-07:00

I'm nearly 100% that this bit from William Germano's Getting It Published, is intentional Nabokovilia (and if so, way witty, given the professor's field of study):An editor in psychology might acquire thirty titles a year in the field, five of which will come in through the efforts of Professor Quilty, the distinguished abnormal psychologist, whose extensive contacts have enabled her to build the

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-65127237893392397832010-04-14T21:50:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:36.995-07:00

From page 315 of Zadie Smith's immensely pleasurable, terribly funny, aptly titled On Beauty:She did it. She jumped off the bed and into his lap. His erection was blatant, but first she coolly drank the rest of his wine, pressing down on him as Lolita did on Humbert, as if he were just a chair she happened to sit on. No doubt she had read Lolita. And then her arm went round the back of his neck

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-25764053574032141682010-03-18T10:04:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:37.017-07:00

From a poem in Jim Barnes's A Season of Loss: In the house where Nabokov finished Lolitathe foundation begins to settle, walls sinking in around a curving staircase, Lolita's legs stillFrom Julian Barnes' Nothing to Be Frightened Of:It could, I suppose, be worse. It almost always can -- which is some mild consolation. We might fear the prenatal abyss as well as the post-mortal one. Odd, but not

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-58788777531677876922010-03-17T13:41:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:37.046-07:00

Detail from Saul Steinberg's cover for the 18 October issue of the New Yorker (visible: Nabokov (between "Gogol" and "Hi Nabor") and Ada (between "Ada" and "Hedda"). (Via the Nabokv-L Listserv.)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-9681417670455478252010-03-16T17:11:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:20:37.059-07:00

“Outside” name-drops writers Vladimir Nabokov and J.D. Salinger. Other tunes like “Virginia” – Kuehn calls them “slow jams” – incorporate keyboards and have a more deliberate, moodier feel. At live shows, however, “we play everything fast,” Levin said.(The rest of the story is here.)Museum Mouth at Tumblr / Museum Mouth at MySpace (where "Outside" can be streamed)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-47326423909432747002010-03-15T11:54:00.001-07:002010-03-15T11:54:58.532-07:00

Haeckel_Kunstformen_157.jpgOriginally uploaded by EricGjerdeI want this for wallpaper. Physical wallpaper. Real paper on real walls. Jellyfish(ish) wallpaper!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-49326522384063777352010-03-12T09:43:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.084-07:00

Carrie Frye contrasts Nabokov's color field to Muriel Spark's:Through this "scattering of nutshells" (Lane's phrase) you get a portrait of Nabokov as a writer. I was reminded of it by Maud's similar collage of first sentences from nine Muriel Spark novels. Interesting to compare the two. For example, Nabokov's color field: azure shading into quivering blue, vivid greens and a spot of red. The

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-14464783490422025282010-03-12T09:26:00.000-08:002010-03-12T09:26:07.049-08:00

This look, featured in The Sartorialist, is just plain awesome, down to the gloves in the breast pocket (I'm not a fan of gloves, generally, but they do look good there: it's like you've got a little pet squid! (better yet if you've got a pair in cordovan, I bet)):

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-66860813593600704782010-02-22T14:38:00.000-08:002010-02-22T14:38:12.452-08:00

Me and my very short Quixote-ish goof of a "sudden fiction" show up right after Jorge Luis Borges in Norton's Sudden Fiction Latino. (Vd.! Table of Contents.) Buy eight copies!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com2La Mancha, 38434 Icod de los Vinos, Spain28.3791848 -16.72445728.360305800000003 -16.753639500000002 28.3980638 -16.6952745tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-22303250967447355042010-02-19T12:14:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.103-07:00

I've been avoiding Pamuk for a while but may need to read Museum of Innocence for some Nabokovilia:At a third level the book can be read as a meditation on the compulsion of collecting and, even, on the act of writing itself. For what is writing fiction but an obsessive collecting of and rearrangement of memories. The story is filled with intertextual references to the works of some of Pamuk’s

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-12906153888010090952010-02-18T15:10:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.119-07:00

The Coen brothers's The Man Who Wasn't There references Lolita? (I saw it, years ago, didn't catch the reference.)Viz (from the Amazon DVD description): Almost in spite of the obsessive cultural references (flying saucers, Nabokov's Lolita, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle), Ed Crane steps neatly from the fray as one of cinema's most memorably disenchanted characters.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-24649925459372614372010-02-17T09:58:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.132-07:00

The sonnets are available at Chess Aficionado. From the site: This is the first English verse translation of the trio of linked chess sonnets that Vladimir Nabokov published in the Russian émigré journal Rul' in Berlin in November 1924. It is certainly the first by an eighty-year old! Who, OK, needed some assistance. Nabokov could, and should, have published an English translation himself, but

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-13532212828201773772010-02-16T14:01:00.000-08:002010-02-16T14:04:32.073-08:00

I love camelhair -- both the color and the fabric -- but there's this immediate temptation to go all earth-tones with it (reds & browns & oranges & rusts). I think it works best when set against cooler shades: here it's mostly navy (both in the knit tie and in the shirt's check) and white. There's a bit of red, but it's restrained.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-27229374163959702272010-02-16T13:57:00.000-08:002010-02-16T13:57:18.393-08:00

There are other combinatorial possibilities in this GQ slideshow, but I like this one the best.

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-44924980932663312172010-02-16T12:22:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.146-07:00

The return of Sweet Valley High, with some of the characters grown older, prompts thoughts of Humbert Humbert revisiting Mrs. Schiller for this New Yorker blogger:Somehow the thought of all these glorified young characters getting old puts me in mind of the final chapters of "Lolita," when Humbert visits Lolita (now Dolly) to find her “frankly and hugely pregnant” with a dog like a fat dolphin:

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-20754607474314505822010-02-15T11:11:00.000-08:002010-02-15T11:11:14.759-08:00

This week's full of awesome Vegas stuff: A Continuous Lean's Michael Williams visits town, posts some terrific vintage Kodakromes. Weekend Stubble's Paul Collins stumbles on this Wikipedia entry: List of Las Vegas Casinos That Never Opened. John D'Agata writes a dark dark dark (but good & sharply observed) thing for The Believer on the town (well worth getting for that alone: lots of sharp Dave

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0Las Vegas, NV, USA36.114646 -115.17281635.8373005 -115.639735 36.3919915 -114.705897tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-87251628451849378272010-02-15T09:51:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.172-07:00

An article on Tono Monogatari, in the 2010 January Believer issue, is entitled Speak, Memorates. (Other McSweeney's-connected Speak, Memory variations include Tom Bissell's Speak, Commentary and George Saunders's Eat, Memory.)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-20485797679218549912010-02-11T16:02:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.191-07:00

Recording under the pseudonym John Shade (a name he gleaned from a fictional poet in the Vladimir Nabokov novel “Pale Fire’’), Godowsky has released his debut album, “All You Love Is Need.’’(The rest at The Boston Globe.)The musician's official web site is at http://johnshademusic.com/

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-49803959933330511782010-02-11T15:36:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.203-07:00

A Nabokov poster (for a design class): love the owl & the colors (see the note -- she's fixing the typo):

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-91159816132774173832010-02-11T12:20:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.219-07:00

A Nabokov movie in the works? Maybe:Meanwhile, Christine Berg, project manager of the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), told ScreenDaily that only two projects have been funded by the “German spend” incentive programme so far this year. These are Corinna Belz’s painter portrait Gerhard Richter – Ohne Titel and Harald Bergmann’s musings on a film about Vladimir Nabokov, 37 Karteikarten Zu Nabokov.(

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-2985661402248609332010-02-10T13:58:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.241-07:00

Via the Nabokv-L Listserv:Despite its originality, the series does have a recognisable lineage. “Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey were enormous for me as a child,” Handler says, “and when I started doing this, I definitely kept them in mind.” The self-referentiality of the books can be traced back to his love of Vladimir Nabokov. “I was a Nabokov freak,” Handler says wistfully. “There’s something

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-3941003156472866402010-02-08T14:00:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.254-07:00

Pale Fire Notes is actually pretty awesome and impressive (despite the self-effacing description):Being some incomplete and largely irrelevant notes and commentary on Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, first posted pseudonymously to thePynchon-L mailing list June to November 2003. Page references are to the 1989 Random House Vintage edition.The website can be accessed at http://importantwork.com/text/

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-87764421514651838802010-02-08T12:20:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.272-07:00

T.C. Boyle on a Nabokovian narrative approach he used for The Women:NW: You made some interesting structural choices with The Women—one was to have one of Wright’s apprentices, Tadashi Sato, narrate the story, and the other was to present the stories of Wright’s love affairs in reverse chronological order, so the reader learns how each of Wright’s love affairs ends before he learns about how it

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-6276289187149181772010-02-06T15:50:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.284-07:00

On Obama and style:He appeared to be in an unusually relaxed, even bouncy mood. He exuded confidence. The speech he delivered was no literary masterpiece (though by State of the Union standards it was downright Nabokovian), but it was a small triumph of tone and subtle theatrics. Despite the grandiosity of the setting—the curlicued proscenium, the massed dignitaries, the absurd aerobics of the

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-40558071074885431002010-02-06T12:18:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.296-07:00

Vd.: What is your favorite book?One of my all-time favorite books is Lolita by Nabokov. I just think he’s such an amazing writer. It’s not the favorite because I have about a zillion favorite books. I’ve always liked The Art of Happiness, Dalai Lama’s book. I think that’s always a good go-to book if you’re feeling depressed. It puts things into perspective.(The rest at In Search of Gina Gershon.)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-38885212458738602992010-02-04T12:42:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.318-07:00

I am quoting La Force about to quote Woods paraphrasing Nabokov:As James Wood writes in his book How Fiction Works:Nabokov used to say that he pushed his characters around like serfs or chess pieces—he had no time for metaphorical ignorance and impotence whereby authors like to say, “I don’t know what happened, by my character just got away from same and did his own thing.”I have to suspect that

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-84652836727930854302010-02-03T10:49:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.336-07:00

Michael Maar's Speak, Nabokov has been getting favorable press:Maar is a literary sleuth, his method a Holmesian combination of instinct, some intellectual delegation and close reading...(The rest of the blurb at the publisher's, Verso.)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-74368845795291706962010-02-02T10:37:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.351-07:00

Ms Hathaway is a Nabokov fan:Q: Why have his books been enjoyed for generations?A: In my opinion, what makes a great book is something that is universally specific. I didn’t read the “Alice” books when I was a child. I read them when I was in college. I was really into Nabokov, and apparently, he was really into Lewis Carroll, so I thought it was a good idea. (The rest at WDW News: "Anne Hathaway

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-33134455362611639422010-02-01T10:40:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.364-07:00

Amis on sentiment, by way of Nabokov on Dickens:Yeah, well. We are all quite sentimental, a word that Nabokov defended. He wrote of Dickens and the death of Little Jo in Bleak House, I will not allow you to describe this as sentimental: people who use that word have no idea what sentiment is...(The rest at Prospect magazine.)

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-12000767588111438752010-01-30T16:39:00.000-08:002010-01-31T13:24:01.713-08:00

"Well Tended," a story I wrote about talking plants and vanishing women, is in the current issue of Glimmer Train! (It's the Spring 2010 issue! #74). You can find it in all sorts of bookstores, or online. Buy five copies!

fulmerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100323184232335104noreply@blogger.com1Portland, OR, USA45.5234515 -122.676207145.2829145 -123.1431261 45.7639885 -122.2092881tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3473142.post-9567990571245681802010-01-28T10:38:00.000-08:002010-10-06T10:20:37.379-07:00

Julian Rios's Loves That Bind seems a likely candidate into Nabokovilia:In true Rios manner, the list follows alphabetically and contains only women who bear a striking resemblance to literary heartbreakers, beginning with Proust's Albertine, Fitzgerald's Daisy, and on to Nabokov's Lolita.

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