Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What I’m reading

Robert McCrum lists “Fifty things I’ve learned about the literary life”. It’s good. Three sample entries:
20. Literary fiction is like sci-fi. It’s a genre.
23. Two writers, alone in a room, will talk about royalties not art.
47. Any new book longer than 500 pages is a stupefying act of self-importance.
Poegles are a new concept to me, a mash-up of Google search results on a specific term as as a poem:
Whatever you think of Google as a tool, constructing a poegle re-imagines the search engine as a digital Ouija board, offering chance, surprises, and maybe even a little mysticism.
This grass sledge is the perfect present for a child whose parents have too much money. When I was a kid sliding down Mount Maunganui, cardboard worked. This costs £349. Luxury!

The English poet Christopher Logue died recently. He is most famous for his rendering of Homer’s Iliad which he did despite knowing no Greek. Interesting choice for a pacifist. He was a frequent contributor to Private Eye, too. Here is his poem “London Airport”:
 Last night in London Airport
 I saw a wooden bin
 labelled UNWANTED LITERATURE
 IS TO BE PLACED HEREIN.
 So I wrote a poem
 and popped it in.



More pasta people here.

Happy Hanukkah!

1 comment: