Sighting: The Prismatic Bezel in the Believer

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, if this interior Kindle contains other false books within (false) books: perhaps The Prismatic Bezel, by Nabokov's dead author Sebastian Knight. (13)

An excerpt of the article is available online.

Boyd on Nabokov's Blues Discovery and the New York Times Article

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 such a complex group, that proved fertile in driving a ground-breaking research project that uses methods (DNA sampling, computer-assisted cladistics) neither he nor anyone else could have imagined in 1945.

Read Boyd's entire comment over at the Nabokv-L Listserv.

• 2/1/2011 Update (Also via the Nabokv-L Listserv): Read/hear this terrific NPR story from 30 January 2011: Lolita Author Nabokov Was Right About Butterflies.

YesBut

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 for those who cannot afford to do so. The very long answer is here, in my response, from whence the slightly long answer is excerpted.

Cheer Up, Las Vegas

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

Our Save-the-Date Card (in color)

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

"Writers Need Readers" ads

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).

Our Save-the-Date Card!

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

Postcards: Ted CoConis Fawcett Crest paperback Ada cover

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

I Tell You What to Do When Visiting the World's Largest H&M

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.

Postcards: Transparent Things Fawcett Crest 1972 paperback cover, by Ted CoConis

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 "Paperback Nabokov," available in McSweeney's Issue 4.)

Nabokov-centric Previously Unpublished Updike Interview

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 Happiness, which looks terrific.

News: Letters to Vera, in Russian (Next Year, in English)

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.

VN Sighting: Mark Helprin

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 girl there, even though he had never been on a motorcycle before. She rejected him, he said, and on his way back, he crashed.

“The lesson is: don’t drive a motorcycle when you’re depressed,” Helprin said.

Though badly injured, he made his way back to Marseilles, he said, and collapsed near the USS Robert A. Owens. The crew tried to treat the bloodied and feverish Helprin. “For that reason, I’ve always loved the Navy.” Nevertheless, he was still in poor physical condition. Helprin said he traveled to Switzerland to recover, where he met author Vladimir Nabokov and his wife eating breakfast on the balcony of the hotel where all three were staying.

Helprin, mispronouncing Nabokov’s name, shouted, “Nabokov! Nabokov! Isn’t that amazing, because I’m a writer too!”

The rest at Helprin entrances with stories. (Via the Nabokv-L forum.)

Nabokovilia: Richard Burgin

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 win next year's Nobel Prize, and every year's for that matter."


Jonathan was impressed that West knew Nabokov as well as Fitzerald, but he had said it with such grandiloquence that Jonathan cringed.


See also this bit from Burgin's "The Identity Club":


He was considered at present an "uncommitted member" and had been debating between Nathanael West and some other writers. Nabokov, whom he might have seriously considered, had already been taken. At least, since he still had a month before he had to commit, he didn't have to dress in costume...

Vegas Valley Book Festival Stuff

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 Nutting, Juan Martinez, K. W. Jeter, and Geoff Schumacher, moderator, discuss their contributions to the Las Vegas Writes Project 2010: A collection of seven original short stories based on iconic Las Vegas photographs; published by CityLife Books as part of this year’s book festival" (http://vegasvalleybookfestival.org/calendar/)

And this Friday, starting at 5:30 pm, I will be on a bike and I will be reading poems at various places with various people:

• Friday, November 5, 6:00 pm – 9:30 pm First Friday @ 18 b the Arts District My Wheel is in the dark: A Night Ride with Las Vegas Bike Bards. Sponsored by Nevada Humanities, First Friday and the Office of Cultural Affairs First Friday hosts the Vegas Valley Book Festival’s poetry night with Mayor Oscar Goodman and Dayvid Figler reading original haiku poems at 6 pm on the main stage (Colorado Street and California) Featuring a mobile poetry brigade led by Jarrett Keene; with poets Jeffery Bennington Grindley, Harry Fagel, Artikulate, Juan Martinez, Dayvid Figler, Shaun Griffen, and Joan Dudley. Readings at the Government Center, Commerce Street Studios, Trifecta Gallery, Holsum Lofts, Contemporary Arts Center, and the Beat Coffee House — with free shuttle service to some sites (http://vegasvalleybookfestival.org/calendar/)

On Saturday, November 6, starting at 11:30 am, I'll be part of this reading, which is part of an artist-writer set of collaborations titled I Hope You're Feeling Better. I did three collaborations! Two with Jennifer Henry, one with Andreana Donahue. Check them out! At the gallery! The thing that I will read will be brief, and may in fact be an angry e-mail to Jennifer (for to: one of our things was a back-and-forth of graphics and story we modeled on Missing Missy):

• Saturday, November 6, starting at 11:30 am. I Hope You're Feeling Better A collaborative art project featuring work by eighteen Las Vegas writers and visual artists. The exhibition events are supported through funding from the Vegas Valley Book Festival and Nevada Humanities. (http://cac.wildapricot.org/events?eventid=230184&EventViewMode=EventDetails)

I Tell You What to Wear

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 something? I help you out too (as does the always awesome, always stylish Ms. Sara Nunn):

Open publication - Free publishing - More food

And that is it! I am done telling you what to do for the nonce, other than you should maybe consider getting yourself a nice camel blazer or a tweed sports coat.

Captain Adama Book Festival

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 festival. Captain Adama!

Also: I was on the radio this morning! KNPR's State of Nevada, talking about my story for the Vegas Valley Book Festival's Las Vegas Writes Project.

Now I am talking about my story to the two cats in our house, whose interest in fiction is not to be underestimated.

Nabokovilia: The Extra Man, by Jonathan Ames

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 breasts in her opened bedroom window as if she was just leaning out to get some night air, and her window was on an alley, and I was to come long and suck on her breasts in the darkness, and then go away without saying a word.

Nabopop: Bored to Death

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 HBO site.)

On Paradise (My contribution to Las Vegas Writes, part of the Vegas Valley Book Festival)

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 know. 

More stuff:

• On the Vegas Valley Book Festival
• On Las Vegas Writes
• On the Event (also has info on My Wheel is in the Dark: A Night Ride with Las Vegas Bike Bards", a poets-on-bikes thing, also part of the Vegas Valley Book Festival, in which I will also be participating).