This is a list of interviews, articles, and talks, and readings about and with American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.
Ted Kooser on NPR’s All Things Considered, October 2005. (Audio and article)
The Crossing Over; Interview with Kooser for Guernica Magazine, April 2006
Kooser visits University of California, Davis, October 2006. (video)
Poetry reading on UCTV, January 2008 (video)
Sally Molini interview Kooser for the Summer 2009 issue of Cerise Press.
This is a collection of links to articles about, and interviews with, poet and environmentalist Gary Snyder. They are in roughly chronological order, and will be updated as time and interest allows.
“The Wild Mind of Gary Snyder”, Shambhala Sun interview, May 1996.
“The Art of Poetry”, Paris Review interview with GS, 1996.
GS in 2009 at U.C. Berkeley on the 50th anniversary of publishing RipRap. (video)
The Oregonian interview with GS, June 2011.
NCTV Interview with GS in 2012. (video)
“The Man in the Clearing”, Ian Sinclair discusses GS, London Review of Books, May 2012. (essay and video)
This post is a central point where I can collect articles about, and interviews with, the American author Jim Harrison. I’m trying to keep them in roughly chronological order. One interesting effect of this is listening to his voice change through the years, and being able to hear him in my head while reading the print articles.
The Art of Fiction No. 104 – Paris Review interview, Summer 1988
Between Dog and Wolf (French documentary on JH), 1993
Writers and Company interview with JH from 1994. (audio)
“Will Write for Food”; NYT interview with JH, April 1994.
Excerpt from a documentary c. 1997. (video)
Wild Duck Review interview with JH from 1997.
Joseph Bednarik interviews Jim Harrison, October 2000.
JH reading at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico – February 2002. (video)
JH conversation with Peter Lewis, February 2002 (video)
Robert Birnbaum interviews JH for The Morning News, June 2004.
Pleasures of the Hard-Worn Life – New York Times article 2007.
All Things Considered review of Returning to Earth, February 2007. (audio)
Interview for PlumTV, c. 2008. (video)
Article about Harrison’s Montana farm house; Wall Street Journal c. 2009.
PBS Newshour interview with JH, 2009. (video and transcript)
Daily Beast interview c. 2010.
Outside Magazine article about JH – “The Last Lion” c. 2011.
Interview with JH in Patagonia Arizona, February 2012. (video)
“Courage and Survival” essay by JH in Brick Magazine c. 2012.
Mario Batali interview Jim Harrison for Food & Wine Magazine, April 2013
“Four Meals with Jim Harrison” – HuffPost Books, May 2013
Q&A with Jim Harrison – Oregon Live, December 2013
“It Has to Come to You” – Jim Harrison discusses Theodor Roethke in The Atlantic, January 2014
“What I’ve Learned” – article in Esquire Magazine, August 2014
“A Prairie Prologue in Nebraska” – essay by JH in the New York Times, January 2015
“The Rodney Dangerfield of Literature” – essay in The Daily Beast, February 2015
“An Afternoon with Jim” – article in The Big Timber Pioneer, October 2015
The Gospel According to Jim – article in Angler’s Journal, February 2016
This page will be updated as I find more links.
Top to bottom:
The Wayfinders by Wade Davis
The Lost Origins of the Essay edited by John D’Agata
Borges: Selected Poems by Jorge Luis Borges
A Buddhist Bible, by Dwight Goddard
Freedom by Daniel Suarez
In Such Hard Times by Wei Ying-Wu, translated by Red Pine
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
The bald fella with the big facial hair is Neal Stephenson, author of many wonderful books including Cryptonomicon – my freshly-signed copy of which he is holding – and Anathem, which is his latest book. He was at Schuler Books and Music on 28th Street yesterday for a reading and Q-and-A session. He was very personable, if quite tired-out from the book tour, which has taken him all over the country in a fairly short amount of time.
During QA, I asked him what he thought the next Age might be, in the context of the ages he described in his early novel, Interface (A run-down of those ages is here). He got a funny look on his face and said “You’re asking me to predict the future.” Then he went on to opine that people nowadays seemed to be increasingly afraid of anything of significant complexity, and they were looking for simpler lives. One way they (we) are doing this is to latch onto people with powerful personalities and let them lead the complicated lives while we follow safely in their wakes. This is an observation toward which I will need to direct some significant thought.
After I finish reading Anathem.
If your answer to the above two questions is “Yes”, then there is a book you need to read. It is call Blindsight and the author is Peter Watts.
Blindsight is a first-contact novel set in the year 2082. I don’t really want to give any details, other than the fact that the ship is captained by a vampire, which Watts makes plausible by demonstrating that, in fact, it is not entirely out of the question that vampires could have existed once upon a time. He even throws in the hard science explaining how it could be possible, which is – in my experience – absolutely unprecedented in vampire novels. But don’t just take my word for it: You can read Watts’ research notes here (PDF), or watch a powerpoint-ish presentation (Flash – highly recommended) from a the Big Pharma company which successfully brought vampires out of extinction. And if that isn’t enough, you can read Blindsight online, for free.
Aaaaannnndddd, if Blindsight makes you hungry for more Peter Watts, you can read his other books – Starfish, Maelstrom, and Βehemoth for free as well.
One warning, though: The other novels are much darker than Blindsight.
But wait: There’s more! Watts is working on another novel, which takes place on Earth at the same time as Blindsight is happening in space. The title is State of Grace, and an excerpt can be read here.
Enjoy!
Another science fiction great has left us. Arthur C. Clarke, author of Rendezvous with Rama, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many other works of speculative fiction, long and short, died earlier today in his home in Sri Lanka.
I have not read many of his books; 2001, 2010, Rama, and perhaps one or two others. One of the earliest serious science fiction works I remember reading was The Nine Billion Names of God (warning: spoilers), which left me in equal part awestruck and deeply spooked for some time.
In case you are wondering why Mr. Clarke should interest you, or how he has been a part of your life, ecce: Communication satellites in geostationary orbit were pretty much his idea.
And people say science fiction is only so much stargazing.
In the 1700s, politics was all about the ideas. But Jefferson came up with all the good ideas. In the 1800s, it was all about character. But no one will ever have as much character as Lincoln and Lee. For much of the 1900s it was about charisma. But we no longer trust charisma because Hitler used it to kill Jews and JFK used it to get laid and send us to Vietnam.
Today, we are in the Age of Scrutiny. A public figure must withstand the scrutiny of the media. The President is the ultimate public figure and must stand up under ultimate scrutiny; he is like a man stretched out on a rack in the public square in some medieval shithole of a town, undergoing the rigors of the Inquisition. Like the medieval trial by ordeal, the Age of Scrutiny sneers at rational inquiry and debate, and presumes that mere oaths and protestations are deceptions and lies. The only way to discover the real truth is by the rite of the ordeal, which exposes the subject to such inhuman strain that any defect in his character will cause him to crack wide open, like a flawed diamond.
-Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George, Interface
In the stump of the old tree, where the heart has rotted out, there is a hole the length of a man’s arm, and a dank pool at the bottom of it where the rain gathers, and the old leaves turn into lacy skeletons. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees, where the hearts have rotted out, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and dank pools at the bottom where the rain gathers and old leaves turn to lace, and the beak of a dead bird gapes like a trap. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees with rotten hearts, where the rain gathers and the laced leaves and the dead bird like a trap, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and in every crevice of the rotten wood grow weasel’s eyes like molluscs, their lids open and shut with the tide. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees where the rain gathers and the trapped leaves and the beak and the laced weasel’s eyes, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and at the bottom a sodden bible written in the language of rooks. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees where the hearts have rotted out there are holes the length of a man’s arm where the weasels are trapped and the letters of the rook language are laced on the sodden leaves, and at the bottom there is a man’s arm. But do not put your hand down to see, because
in the stumps of old trees where the hearts have rotted out there are deep holes and dank pools where the rain gathers, and if you ever put your hand down to see, you can wipe it in the sharp grass till it bleeds, but you’ll never want to eat with it again.
–Hugh Sykes-Davies
Well, the past couple of months have been wild ups and downs in the book department. Over the holidays I read the three volumes of the Wild Shore Triptych by Kim Stanley Robinson. Each of the books is a possible future for Orange County, CA — The Wild Shore, which was post-apocalyptic, The Gold Coast, an urban dystopia, and Pacific Edge, an up-and-coming ecological utopia. All of them were good, but the last was probably the best read.
I have also been diving head-long into John Varley, who writes some of the most enjoyable science fiction I have read in a long, long time. Several months back I read his Gaea Trilogy — Titan, Wizard and Demon. Very good. More recently I picked up Red Thunder, which was AMAZING; Mammoth and The Ophiuchi Hotline. The latter two were good, but not great…but still well worth the read.
Robin Hobb’s most recent book Forest Mage, the second in the Soldier;s Son trilogy, came out a few months back. The first in the series took off rather slowly, and didn’t seem to have a specific direction, but this one was well worth the effort. Hobb just keeps getting better at writing fantasy novels.
And finally, one which caught me by surprise, kept me up at night, and left me awe-struck: The Terror, by Dan Simmons.
The Terror is historical fiction mixed with some gothic horror and a light touch of the supernatural. It explores the Franklin Expedition, where 128 men disappeared while looking for the Northwest Passage.
I wish I could find the words to express the wonder of Simmons’ books. If you have read the Hyperion Cantos, or any of Simmons’ horror novels then you have an idea what you may find here. It is not a quick read, being almost 800 pages, but if you do dive into The Terror you will find your time and money very well spent.