WIBR Tournament – Round 2, Bracket 3 & 4
April 25, 2008
After today, the road to the Final Four is just one win away. We’ve got some heavy hitting match-ups, ladies and gents.
Click here for the entire bracket.
Bracket Three:
vs.
Rabbit Angstrom – John Updike
It’s a pity that Travels with Charley was in this bracket. Though let’s be honest – it made it a round further than I had expected. The simple fact is, at the time of writing, I am still trying to figure out if Rabbit Angstrom or The Road will make the Final Four.
Which, I guess, writes Travels with Charley out before it even had a chance.
That’s too bad. Travels with Charley might be the perfect sunny day camping book. While reading Rabbit Angstrom would require an entire month of sunny camping trips.
The Winner: Rabbit Angstrom – John Updike
vs.
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Dave Eggers, your cuteness fails you.
McSweeney’s is great, and this book was good, but none of it seems to have any social impact. You never quite grasp the idea that a book can be powerful without throwing yourself into it.
The main character of your life doesn’t need to be the main character of your books.
With A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, it was okay. It was a great plot device, and it was a touching book. It’s your best, and the only one I’d read again.
With What is the What, you never failed to mention your involvement in the book, and while you never physically showed up in the story, you were always there, floating above the story, reminding us of your worth.
But the worst was with You Shall Know Our Velocity. A great story, marred by your infernal meddling. You just had to butt in, throw a wrench in anything we had believed at the time, breaking down the fourth wall and wandering into our engaging fiction novel.
Cormac McCarthy would never do that. He’d just kill the entire nation for our pleasure.
The Winner: The Road – Cormac McCarthy
vs.
Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (ELIC) was read with rapt attention. Then We Came to the End (TWCE) was read quickly, devoured in just three days.
ELIC is multi-layered, featuring touching relationships and a three-tiered historical set of characters. TWCE is about advertising.
ELIC is filled with beautiful imagery, a tragic story and clever typography. TWCE is written in the simple and expressive style of a copywriter.
ELIC and TWCE could be on separate ends of the spectrum, yet both had a feeling of lightheartedness, though ELIC’s lightheartedness hid a sleeping remorse. TWCE’s lightheartedness didn’t hide anything but a good time.
That’s all fine and good.
What really matters is that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a great book with great characters. But Then We Came to the End is a book I can relate to. And laugh with. Over and over again.
I guess that wins, right?
The Winner: Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris
vs.
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
I feel like I’ve already reviewed this match-up. Except in slightly different circumstances, I guess.
Lorrie Moore, in the grand scheme of writers, is not Jorge Luis Borge. Of course, neither is David Mitchell – it wasn’t the quality of the stories that knocked Mirror of Ink out, but the impact and length.
Still, David Mitchell’s short story collection resonated with me because it was joined together to form a perfect novel-like progression of total dork to nearly accepted cool kid. It felt good to me, like all of us total dorks had been somehow vindicated through Mitchell’s stories.
And, if I remember correctly, I chose Like Life to win because…
I just liked Lorrie Moore better.
No real reason. It’s hard to explain. Maybe I’m just a sucker for stories set in New York City. Maybe I like a slice of city life more than I like a slice of trailer park trash.
Or maybe I just liked it better. Let’s go with that.
Nothing against Lorrie Moore, who’s one of my favorites in the short story genre (if you’re curious, you’ve got to read “People Like That are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk” from Birds of America) but Black Swan Green has stuck with me a lot better.
The Winner: Black Swan Green – David Mitchell
Tags: Books, Literature, Random, What I've Been Reading |
Comment
WIBR Tournament – Round 2, Bracket 1 & 2
April 23, 2008
Sixteen books have been knocked out already, with fifteen more yet to be served their “go home” papers. Some heavy hitters have already been sent away: The Grapes of Wrath, Gilead and White Teeth all had aspirations of going far into the tourney.
Now, we’re paring down to the final eight. Who else will be going home early?
Click here for the entire bracket.
Bracket One:
vs.
Housekeeping – Marilynn Robinson
Hey, I love sports as much as the next guy, and Michael Lewis is one of the best at writing about sports in a way that appeals to the semi-casual fan – those people who are passionate about one sport and casual about the rest of them, who can spout off the important statistics yet aren’t bogged down by a weighted knowledge of irrelevant information.
Die-hards might find him too pandering and general. Non-fans find him boring and tedious (though he has a way of reaching out to those non-fans with a personal side to every story). But everyone in between – which is to say most of us – probably have a hard time finding much fault.
That’s really all I can say, though. When you boil everything down, Moneyball is a sports book – suffering two horrible strikes against it; it’s a non-fiction book (which I tend to draw away from) and it’s a sports book (which throws it into the novelty pile) – while Housekeeping is a beautiful masterpiece that I read, in part, while rocking my beautiful two-week old daughter to sleep. The choice is pretty easy.
The Winner: Housekeeping – Marilynn Robinson
vs.
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth – Chris Ware
I look at these two books and I can’t help but be drawn to Jimmy Corrigan.
Why is that?
I won’t lie. When I started matching the brackets up, I didn’t expect Ware’s graphic novel to make it past the first round, let alone take on two great novels like White Teeth and Fortress of Solitude.
But the more I think about it, the more endearing Jimmy Corrigan becomes. I keep reminding myself of how wonderful it is. One of the saddest things I’ve ever read, but wonderful all the same.
Maybe Fortress of Solitude – a 2008 completion – hasn’t quite sunk in as a modern classic. Or maybe Jimmy Corrigan really is as good as I keep thinking.
Either way, Ware’s moving on.
The Winner: Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth – Chris Ware
vs.
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint Exupéry
I’ve met Ivan Doig. He’s a very nice man – an older, patient man who admittedly came up with the name of his novel The Whistling Season before he had come up with any part of the story. He was humble and well spoken. He wasn’t at all what I expected, which was a welcome surprise.
I’ve never met Antoine de Saint Exupéry. But Kerrie’s grandfather has, during World War II. Both were pilots, and while I am unsure of the exact meeting place or circumstances, I know that the two did indeed meet. It’s the reason we found a special edition copy of The Little Prince for Kerrie’s grandfather during our honeymoon in New Orleans, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to read The Little Prince to embryonic Sierra.
Yes, I mentioned before that The Little Prince holds a trump card over many of the books in this competition – the “I read this to my baby when she was yet to be born.” But there’s something that has been mentioned twice already that pokes a hole in The Little Prince’s armor – there are books I read during those first few weeks that hold the same emotional tug.
I once wrote a post about how location and context can be just as important as content. It’s true. I remember where I was when I read Housekeeping, or Then We Came to the End – I was spending my first few weeks with Sierra, rocking her to sleep, reading with the aid of a night light (back in the days when rocking Sierra to sleep could be paired with another productive exercise). The Whistling Season was one of those books.
(A quick aside. Just to get the record straight, the books I read during those few weeks were very good – don’t think they’re getting a pass just because Sierra was present; remember, the surprisingly below-average The Sportswriter was read during that time as well.)
What it comes down to is that no matter what nostalgic slant I put on The Little Prince – no matter how many times Sierra will hear it, no matter how emotionally attached I am to its story, no matter what paternal urges tug me in its direction, no matter what physical connection I’ve had with the author – I can’t deny that, after all, it’s a children’s story. And while it may have made more of an emotional connection, The Whistling Season can make many of the same claims.
Taking the books at face value, for their content instead of their context, I find myself choosing The Whistling Season every time.
The Winner: The Whistling Season – Ivan Doig
vs.
Feet on the Street: Ramblings Around New Orleans – Roy Blount, Jr.
This one really isn’t even fair. Sorry, Roy. You snuck through one round. You had to have expected to lose here.
The Winner: East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Tags: Books, Literature, Random, What I've Been Reading |
Comment
That’s hot(dish)
April 23, 2008
Last night was a very special night. I For the first time in my life, I made tater tot hotdish. After years of living in two of the country’s casserole hotbeds, I’ve finally given in to their charm.
It was a special recipe for Chili Cheese Potato Tot Casserole. I substituted Morningstar Griller Crumbles for the hamburger and made my own chili mix. Either way, it was pretty awesome and probably not very good for me.
From now on, I shall dub this dish Hatten Tot Hotdish.
That’s all. It was kind of an important day in my life. I love tater tots. And I love this hot dish.
Well, what are you staring at? Carry on!
Girl, I love you sweetly (back again)
April 8, 2008
Oh. Please God. I thought we were rid of these guys.
I somehow missed this news last week. But NKOTB is back.
Following two months of reunion rumors, the five original members of New Kids on the Block made it official Friday with an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show.
Great.
Illumination in every sense of the word
March 4, 2008
I’ve always loved this image.
Click image for full view with comments
From the comments below the picture:
The image is a panoramic view of the world from the new space station….It is a night photo with the lights clearly indicating the populated areas. You can scroll East-West and North-South.
Note that Canada’s population is almost exclusively along the U.S. border.
Moving east to Europe, there is a high population concentration along the Mediterranean Coast. It’s easy to spot London, Paris, Stockholm and Vienna.
Note the Nile River and the rest of Africa. After the Nile, the lights don’t come on again until Johannesburg. Look at the Australian Outback and the Trans-Siberian Rail Route. Moving east, the most striking observation is the difference between North and South Korea. Note the density of Japan.
As humans, we’re in danger of scrambling far past the point of comfortable living, piling ourselves higher and higher in areas of the world that aren’t designed to be habitable by our species. We build out of bounds when we’re free to do so. When we can’t build out, we build up . We push everything out of our way in a new form of Manifest Destiny, slaughtering open space and murdering the untouched nature of the great outdoors.
But when you look at a picture like this, you realize how much of our world is uninhabited. Not because we haven’t made it there yet, but because Mother Earth has devised ways of keeping us out.
I could study this map all day. It shows the difference between populated and uninhabited, industrialized and third world, crowded and spacious.It tells so much about the world – about our patterns, about our needs and about our migration routes.
All without uttering a word. All illuminated by the gentle hum of electricity.
Garfield Minus Garfield
February 26, 2008
It’ll be light for the next few days. I’m still feeling a little bit of a posting hangover after last week’s Oscar ExtravaganzaFest.
Until then, check out what life is like for Jon when Garfield is away: Garfield Minus Garfield.
From the site:
“Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?”
Life has never looked so lonely for Jon. I can’t tell if these are hilarious or really sad. I feel both ways.
Via bookslut.
Tags: Random, Random Links |
Comment
Unmatched everything
January 22, 2008
So I see A’Mentele twitter’n (bragging, more like it) about his unmatched style front page feature. (His blog, Charisma:18, is very pretty. But he does that stuff for a living, so what do you expect?)
Then I click on my blog. Up comes my patchwork representation of blog design, adapted from someone else’s blog design, slow loading and certainly not CSS perfect.
And when I click on Misc. Asst., it’s even worse. That site’s got a lot of work to do.
I’m in over my head. So I ask, with pleading eyes…
…does anyone want to create a pretty blog for me? Pretty please?
Seriously. If you’re a loyal reader of BMOWP (or Misc. Asst.), talk to me. I need a new blog design. I talk about how much I love great design, then I struggle to create my own.
Help!
Tags: Blogging, Meta, Misc. Asst., Random |
3 Comments
About
Black Marks on Wood Pulp has been commenting on life and everything associated with it since February 2005. He's also photoblogging at Much More Sure. Everything you've ever wanted to know about Black Marks on Wood Pulp and Corey Vilhauer is located here, on the About Page.
Posts
- What I’ve Been Reading – The Red Pony
- On the first day of preschool
- Mastering the cycle of inspiration
- Puddle jumping
- D*** it
- The doctor’s office
- Everything is dead
- What I’ve Been Reading – HTML5 for Web Designers
- A quick note on children’s brands
- There is no greater sports star than the sports star I become … in my head.
Comments
- Corey Vilhauer on Mastering the cycle of inspiration: "Possibly. One thing’s for sure: your creative peaks are much more delicious than mine."
- kv on Mastering the cycle of inspiration: "This must be why I have to make ricotta cheese and spaghetti sauce for the eggplant parmesean and still feel the need to make hamburger buns. Oh, and..."
- Corey Vilhauer on The “Aha” moment: "I loved that episode. I love that show."
- m!les on The “Aha” moment: "RadioLab had a great episode where they discussed counting in young children. The conclusion they made was that children think of numbers logarithmically...."
- Sam on Everything is dead: "“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” - The Web"
