Rock! Rock! Rocktober links!

There's bullet point rock, and then there's Bullet! Point! ONSLAUGHT!

• There's reviews of some recent feminist books making the rounds. Here's one at Salon about Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs, about the "raunch" drenched culture we're living in. And here's another about Peggy Drexler's Raising Boys Without Men, about single and lesbian mothers raising sons without fathers. That latter one pointed out by Conversational Reading, where some interesting discussion ensues.


• There's one thing on America's mind this year: John Locke, wtf? Okay, I lied, there's two things on America's mind this year: John Locke, wtf? and the question of just who is Miss Snark? Or at least, this is my sense of America, based on me sometimes looking around me, and me sometimes reading my search query stats on how people find this Web site. For the first, I can answer thusly: The island is Laura Palmer. Now that that's all solved up and we can all move on with our lives, we can begin attacking the second question, because truth be told, kids, I've got no idea who Miss Snark is. So I don't know how you all keep winding up here looking for the answer. It's a little bit weird, actually, I'll admit. I mean here I am offering a wealth of incisive, cutting book reviews, and y'all skip right over that looking for answers I ain't got. Oh well, can't say I didn't warn you. (And on the chance Miss Snark makes it all the way to my dusty little corner of the Internet, hey, you're awesome. Can I, uh, have your autograph? No reason.)


• "Howl" turns 50 on Friday. I'm not really sure how to celebrate the birthday. I hope it doesn't involve looking for a fix, though. Last time that happened? Nobody saw me for twelve years. And when I finally came back? I knew kung-fu, ate nothing but Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and would respond only to the name "Mariska!" As in, Mariska, with an exclamation point. Don't ask.


• I didn't know Susan Orlean (author of The Orchid Thief, which I have not read, the book that inspired Adaptation, which I did see, and liked muchly) came from Cleveland. Looks like she's coming back, too. Gosh, mad props to CPL. Keep the hits coming, eh?


• I have it on good authority that the Mac's Backs bookstore on Coventry is where all the cool kids in Cleveland will be on November 8. Why? Because it's an OMG WTF Literary Bonanza Palooza Explosion of Awesomeness (my title, not theirs) that day, with Dan Chaon (You Remind Me Of Me, a TDAOC "Oh awesome!" pick), Maureen McHugh (Mothers & Other Monsters, which was awesome), and Kelly Link (Stranger Things Happen, which I've read and liked, and Magic For Beginners, which I have not yet read but which I will now have to cram into my reading list between now and then) all reading and rocking the basement to its very, er, foundation. I've already got one friend who quit his job today so he'll be able to make it. So get those resignation letters ready, people.


• The Elegant Variation points us toward the sale of a new Vikram Chandra novel that clocks in at 1200 pages. That's not the interesting part: the book is "billed as a combination of The Godfather and a Victorian Gothic novel". Question: What do that last sentence and alcohol have in common? Answer: They kill your brain cells.


• I guess Ben Marcus (who wrote The Age of Wire and String wrote some article in some magazine (paper things, maybe?) in which he attacked my close, personal homeboy Jonathan Franzen on the grounds that Franzen maybe poo-pooed the whole experimental literature thing. Or something, the story isn't all that clear, but Conversational Reading has posted some commentary. Having read none of the original source material won't stop me from adding my own commentary, of course: The Corrections made me stand up and shout and spike the book when I was done with it--which was quite awkward in the middle of the crowded coffee shop, let me tell you--while Marcus's book sort of made me go, "Oh, ah, uhm. Right, then." Not that I didn't like it or anything, but, eh...I'm really pretty cool with experimental literature, when it doesn't pretty much blatantly make a point of avoiding making eye contact of any sort (or at least only mostly) with the reader. I want to be challenged as much as the next guy, just not by Sanskrit.


• And finally, before I start dipping back so far into the links I start pasting in stories about the emergence of that hot new book Infinite Jest, Maud Newton gives us learning about how Canada has totally once again kicked our ass.