On Stuart Dybek's "Saint Stuart" and Kent Haruf's "Benediction": Books to Come From Two of Our Best Writers

Posted on December 4, 2011 by williamjcobb

So last week I had the good fortune of overseeing the visit to our campus and fiction reading by Stuart Dybek, one of the finest contemporary American fiction writers of all. Dybek is known as something of a “writer’s writer,” but that sounds too effete for how good he is, and he’s anything but effete: His fiction, set mainly in Chicago, is gutsy, earthy, nostalgic, funny, ribald, and insightful. During his visit he read excerpts from a nonfiction novel-in-progress titled Saint Stuart, which had some hilarious descriptions of being an oversized, outmanned boxer at a Chicago Catholic high school. And during the visit I found out Dybek is also friends with Kent Haruf, who has finished a new novel that should be out in the not-too-distant future, titled Benediction. I’ve no doubt it will be knockout, following on the heels of his two most recent novels that were published to much acclaim (and became best-sellers): Plainsong (1999) and Eventide (2004). Kent is one of the best American novelists, and writes about my adopted home-state, Colorado. Right now I’m rereading Stuart Dybek’s I Sailed With Magellan (2003), and am excited to look forward to two good books in the future.

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My Short Story, "The Lives of Gofers," in The Superstition Review

Posted on December 1, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I have a short story titled “The Lives of Gofers” out today in an online literary magazine, The Superstition Review, set in a hardscrabble Colorado. It’s available for all to read at this url:
http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/n8/
This fall I also have a short story titled “The Lousy Adult” (set in Taos, New Mexico) published in The Hopkins Review, but they don’t post all their material online for free. Here’s the url for the excerpt, and you can order the story/journal from this webpage:
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/the_hopkins_review/v004/4.4.cobb.pdf

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"The Muppets Movie" Meets "The Human Centipede": Now That Ain't Right

Posted on November 29, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the title for this post should be “The Muppets Movie cleanses the horror of The Human Centipede,” but oh well. These two happened to be the films I saw this weekend: The Muppets Movie at a local cineplex, where the real fun of the (silly, sweet) movie experience was watching how totally engrossed my daughter was in it, and later seeing The Human Centipede on Netflix. One of my students recommended it, which should have been a warning. And I actually really knew nothing about it, except that it’s a “cult” film, which often means a good thing: Dead Man and The Big Lebowski are both considered cult films, and both are great. The Human Centipede? Seriously disgusting, odd, disturbing, awful, and so over-the-top it makes one shake one’s head and say, as Hank Hill often says in King of the Hill, “That ain’t right.” My students have since informed me there’s a sequel, and plans for another. If it’s any indication of my “rating,” I won’t watch the sequel. I don’t want to give it all away by describing it in detail, but suffice to say it’s a British-Dutch horror film, with one memorable mad-scientist dude named Dieter. It was banned in Britain. I can see why. By the end I wanted to rush back and rewatch Amy Adams in The Muppets Smalltown one more time, just to remind myself there’s some goodness left in the world.

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On HBO's "Enlightened": Or The Resurrection of Laura Dern

Posted on November 22, 2011 by williamjcobb

So Monday night has become one of those rarities: the premier night of must-see TV. I mostly ignore network TV these days, because the many commercial breaks get so tedious that once you get used to programs without them, they seem too intrusive to put up with. That leaves most of the TV series, then, to the movie networks, as in HBO, Showtime, etc., and those can be hit-or-miss. I like Boardwalk Empire, which has still not quite reached the heights of The Sopranos, though it is the product of some of the same writers/producers. My new favorite show is Enlightened, now in its first season, which features nothing less than The Resurrection of Laura Dern’s Career—as in once again showing what a dynamic actress she is/can be. She seems most noticeable in the Jurassic Park films, which are fun in their own way, but she’s a much better actress than that. The last film I can remember where she was used to her potential was Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth (1996) in which she uttered the famous line, “I slept on some babies!” She was also great in Recount (2008), doing the famous Florida Republican stooge Katherine Harris to a tee.
In Enlightened she plays Amy Jellicoe, a frustrating/sad/agonizing/narcissistic/New Age train wreck of a character, who alternates between being profane, funny, heartbreaking, and self-destructive, all in the space of a half-hour show. It’s not quite a comedy, not quite a drama, not quite a dramedy: It’s painful at times to watch, because I know people like Amy, and they can be frustrating. It has an up-to-date feel that anchors it in the here-and-now. It’s not another Medieval wetdream targeted at withdrawn teenagers daydreaming of swords and talking unicorns. There’s a realness to the events/people that makes for great TV. The recent episode about a kayaking trip was maybe the best yet: both comical and heartbreaking.

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"The Blood People": On Horror Creeping in Netflix, With Nods to "Night of the Demons," "Primal," and the Awful "The Awakening"

Posted on November 18, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the other morning my five-year-old daughter wakes up and the first thing she says to me is, “People are made of blood.” She’s right, actually. And I kind of like the poetry of the line, although the way her eyeballs glowed an iridescent yellow was a bit disconcerting. I encapsulated her sentence into “The Blood People,” good title for a bad horror movie. Which is what Netflix has become for me: A zone where I creep around (a la Facebook ‘creeping’) and search for the worst horror movies (or close to worst) I can find, in the hopes of finding one in the So-Bad-It’s-Good category. Primal, Night of the Demons, and The Awakening come to mind, while Pelt doesn’t make the cut, in the category of So Bad It’s Just Bad. Primal and Night of the Demons play on the tried-and-true plot setup of horny college students turning into monsters and/or getting their just desserts by being ripped apart by said monsters/demons, and The Awakening (which, I must confess in the interests of “transparency,” I could not finish) is so goofy it’s likable: too-old (thirtysomething?) deadbeat slackers get invited to a rave by a sexy girl (read: demon) and end up battling a flurry of demons, awakened by the discovery of (you guessed it) an ancient Aztec amulet (alliterative, too), or perhaps an ancient omelette, I forget which. (Omelette horror? Now that would be different. “Those aren’t eggs you’re beating! They’re eyeballs!”)

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On Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0": A Disturbing Vision of the Future

Posted on November 15, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I must first confess that I am NOT a Thomas Friedman fan, which I think makes my enthusiasm more authentic for his nonfiction book Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America. Why am I not a fan? As a columnist for the NY Times, and author of The World Is Flat (2005), among others, Friedman sometimes seems a bit of a Globalization huckster, arguing how the U.S. should be more like India and China (which I think is becoming true, that Globalization is having that effect, of all countries becoming more like each other, sharing the problems of disproportionate wealth, for one thing). But, begrudgingly, I agree with much of what he says, and at times I think I simply find him rather unctuous, perhaps too self-promoting—smug, even. So big deal.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded (the updated version, published in 2009, which has been retitled Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution) is simply quite good—clear thinking, wise, and cautious. I don’t agree with everything he says, but his overall point is right on target. Our politicians should be reading it. He dissects the current financial turmoil, our oddly symbiotic/parasitic relationship with China, and the dangerous path we’re on to devastating climate change.
On that subject, check this out, a rather disquieting fact: Greenhouse gas emissions rose (we should be making them drop, obviously) by a record amount last year. (How do they calculate such a thing?) See here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/09/364895/iea-global-warming-delaying-action-is-a-false-economy/

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On Werner Herzog's New Film, "Into the Abyss," and the One Currently Opening Wide Its Maw at Penn State

Posted on November 12, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I teach at Penn State, a position which will be uncomfortable to admit for some time. Suffice to say it’s been one bizarre, disheartening week. I’ll let others shout bromides about the charges and the conduct of officials, but I will suggest some understanding for the plight of our students: The night JoePa was fired, people were upset, and understandably so. Most of the students in the crowds outside were simply there to see what was happening. No one can quite believe it. Jack Cafferty called them “punks” who should be expelled from the university. What about some compassion? A man they’ve admired for years, for generations even, has been brought down, and they don’t know what to make of it. The overturning of a news van is wrong, of course. But it’s not so difficult to understand: They’re lashing out at the public spectacle that our campus has become. I’m ashamed of it, and I know most of us are. But the protests aren’t motivated by simply some kneejerk adoration of football, good God. They’re people, young people, who are seeing their heroes brought down. It hurts. We’re all blindsided.
So in this light, along comes a new film titled Into the Abyss by the great Werner Herzog, on crime and punishment in Texas, about a death penalty case, no less. Just last May I blogged about the Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a fantastic film that it seems no one else saw; no one I know, anyway. Here’s the Times review of Into the Abyss. I’m seeing it first chance I get.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/movies/into-the-abyss-by-werner-herzog-review.html?hpw

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Christo's Next Art Project, "Over the River," Gets Approved, and Will Be in My Backyard

Posted on November 9, 2011 by williamjcobb

So there’s good news for art lovers of the world: Installation-art guru Christo has finally got approval for his project titled “Over the River,” which will be located about twenty short miles north of my Colorado home, on the Arkansas River in Big Horn Canyon! His last project was the Gates project in New York’s Central Park, and was a huge success. I think it will be way cool: A shimmering river of mylar panels hovering over the Arkansas River, which Zebulon Pike explored in 1806-7, right after Lewis & Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804-1806. Here’s a url to the Times article about its approval:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/United-States-Approves-Christos-Over-the-River-Project-in-Colorado.html?src=me&ref=general
Big Horn Canyon is beautiful, and Christo has said he searched the entire Western U.S. to find just the right conditions, and found it there, in my back alley. (I know the distance is more than an alley, but we often drive 60 miles to go to the supermarket out there, so exaggeration keeps it in context.)

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The Goy Crisis

Posted on November 3, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the other day I was discussing (perhaps ‘talking at’ would be a more accurate description) the Boy Crisis issue with my class of (rather sleepy, uncommunicative) undergraduate students in an Intro to Creative Writing class, and it was something of a depressing eye-opener. As is common, most (but certainly not all) of the males in the class seemed to be somewhat in the category of video-game loving slackers, happy to fail the quizzes (because they haven’t done the reading), content to show up and consider that a triumph. Instead of the Boy Crisis I’m thinking it should be called the Goy Crisis, targeting particularly privileged (or semi-privileged) WASP-type males who seem content to have a good time and lose out in this competitive global economic structure. It seems a waste, of course, and seems as if a segment of the population who should be learning and growing up are stuck in a perpetual adolescence.
Of course every age and generation has its people who succeed and those who fail. As a professor, you want them all to succeed. So I hope how bleak it seems is an illusion. Maybe they will all grow up at some point and learn something. Or maybe they’ll turn out like the salesmen in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glennross. Thank god for Adam Sandler or those Hangover flicks: That way they can laugh as they’re watching the flat-screen in their parents’ den, after returning home to live with them in the post-graduate years.

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On Paul Gilding's "The Great Disruption," With a Nod to Eugene Linden's "The Future in Plain Sight"

Posted on November 2, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I’m a sucker for ‘big vision’ books about the future and the myriad problems we face with climate change and resource depletion, and right now I’m reading Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption. It manages to be at once peppy and gloomy, which is some kind of accomplishment. I more or less agree with his thesis–that the entire world is in for a major paradigm shift this century. (Although I would also acknowledge that both 19th and 20th centuries saw such shifts.)
Gilding is writing about the usual culprits of Global Warming, economic chaos, and resource depletion, but he waxes a bit rosy on the likelihood of humans overcoming all these problems. I’m at heart an optimist, but I think we honestly can see some dark clouds of human history on the horizon.
A better book than this is Eugene Linden’s The Future in Plain Sight, published in 1998, which warns of problems ahead without seeming alarmist or sugar-coating the story, either. He essentially predicted The Great Recession a decade before it happened. He calls it The Coming Instability, which is not that frightening, but certainly does have its great risks.

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