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October 30, 2008

Ten Books I've Blurbed (part 1)

One of the weirdest and sometimes most uncomfortable aspects of the publishing world is the concept of the "blurb"--one of those quotes you usually see on the back cover, inside front, or even front cover of a book, coming from another, usually more supposedly established or noted, author. I've always felt weird about this process of blurbing. I even despise the word "blurb" itself: it sounds like an ugly bodily function. Nevertheless, in the past, I've been on both sides of the process. My editors and agents asked other authors to give possible quotes for my own books; as is often the case, not everyone agreed. On Mysterious Skin, however, I was lucky to get quotes from five writers I really admire: Dennis Cooper, Connie May Fowler, Matthew Stadler, Michael Cunningham, and even, oddly enough, THIS rather colorful character.

At some point, years ago, I realized that it was probably only fair, and good publishing karma, that I also blurb writers' books. Every so often an editor, agent, or even a writer him/herself would ask me. Like most other writers, I can't always say yes; sometimes I'm in the middle of my own writing, for example, or I'm traveling, or some other excuse. But I think I've been pretty lucky; usually I've gotten books that I truly and honestly like. Tonight I was thinking about the books I've blurbed--some of which maybe didn't do so well and are now out of print; others of which (as in the case of Mr. Palahniuk) went on to far more gigantic explosions of success that I could ever dream of. So here, then, is Part One of books for which I've given a blurb. I've provided the author & title & year of publication, cover, and a portion of each book's synopsis as it appears on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. (And all of these, by the way, I wholeheartedly recommend.) And hey, I've done the blurbing thing more than ten times, so there's more. Part Two will follow soon....

(1) Nick Antosca, Fires (2006)
"Deer running through a ghost neighborhood. A boy trapped in a basement for eight years. Three young people locked in a violent sex triangle.... Already caught between the ambition and alienation of life at an Ivy League school, Jon Danfield must come face to face with a revelation about his small-town past. His journey will take him away from the halls of privilege and into the heart of the monstrous forest fire threatening his childhood home."

(2) Stephen Beachy, Distortion (2001)
"Reggie, a young, racially mixed gay man, on speed and increasingly paranoid, is having trouble distinguishing what is real and what is not. After exchanging his least favourite sexual act for a ticket to Los Angeles, Reggie finds himself on a dark journey where the realities surrounding him have so many layers of meaning he keeps finding it harder and harder to separate truth from fantasy, dreams from visions and hallucinations from reality."

(3) Rebecca Brown, What Keeps Me Here (1996)
"A collection of stories about relationships--between childhood friends, between lovers, between the warring parts of the self.... The prose moves between stark realism and the shimmering surrealism of fairy tales or dreams."

(4) Daniel Clay, Broken (2008)
"Until that fateful afternoon, Skunk Cunningham had been a normal little girl, playing on the curb in front of her house. Rick Buckley had been a normal geeky teenager, hosing off his brand-new car. Bob Oswald had been a normal sociopathic single father of five slutty daughters, charging furiously down the sidewalk. Then Bob was beating Rick to a bloody pulp, right there in the Buckleys' driveway, and life on Drummond Square was never the same again...."

(5) Don De Grazia, American Skin (2000)
"Alex Verdi is on the lam, fleeing from the police who have arrested his parents on drug charges and want him for questioning. Traveling to Chicago, he joins a multiracial group of anti-Nazi skinheads and embarks on an odyssey that takes him from the city's embattled streets to an Army boot camp to Northwestern's plush campus, and finally lands him amid the horrors of maximum-security prison."

(6) Douglas Ferguson, The Forgotten Ones (Canada 2002; USA 2006)
"At the close of the 20th century, the gods have been summoned to the Great God Conference in downtown Vancouver.... Here, amid the flashy clubs, derelict streets, and latest fashions, these has-been gods and mythical power-players come to terms with an age that has lost both its divinity and its humanity."

(7) Drew Ferguson, The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second (2008)
"Tall, gangly and big-eared, Charles James Stewart, Jr., aka Charlie the Second, could be a poster boy for teenaged geeks. All of his efforts to fit in at school have failed, but what's freaking him out most is that while his hormones are racing and his peers are pairing off, he remains alone with his fantasies. But all of this changes when a new guy at school begins to liven things up on the soccer team--and in Charlie's life."

(8) Zachary Lazar, Aaron, Approximately (1998)
"Aaron Bright has the dubious honor of being the son of a fool--actually a clown and the host of a popular TV kidie show in Colorado. Often the target of ridicule, young Aaron is initially willing to accept the taunts of his peers out of loyalty to his father. But when a a misguided publicity stunt ends in tragedy, Aaron is prematurely thrust into an adolescent sphere of dislocation, insecurity, and rebellion as he struggles to make his way without a father."

(9) Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club (1996)
"In a confusing world poised on the brink of mayhem, Tyler Durden, a projectionist, waiter, and anarchic genius, comes up with an idea to create clubs in which young men can escape their humdrum existence and prove themselves in barehanded fights."

(10) Terry Wolverton, Bailey's Beads (1996)
"When a chance car accident sends writer Bryn Redding into a deep coma, a whole luminous life is eclipsed, plunged into a state of darkness. The only glimmers that remain appear through perceptions of those who love her, but contradictions between these views render them suspect. These images of Bryn conflict acutely for Djuna, Bryn's lover of four years, and Vera, Bryn's mother."

Posted by scottheim at 11:40 PM | Comments (2)

October 27, 2008

20 Albums (Since 2000) I've Played the Most

I've had a lot of freelance writing & proofreading work lately, which means I can listen to music while I work, which means that I've resorted to being a music geek again. Tonight I wasted time going through my overpopulated iTunes library to try and figure out which albums released since 2000 that I've listened to the most. I based this on "play count" of each individual song, then added the songs from each album together. I suppose this list would be sorta close to a "best of the decade" list, were I to make one. Yep, I have too much time on my hands. Here, then, are the top 20:

(1) Sigur Ros, ( ) (favorite song: track #8)

(2) Radiohead, In Rainbows (favorite song: "All I Need")

(3) Interpol, Turn On the Bright Lights (favorite song: "Obstacle 1")

(4) Mogwai, Happy Songs For Happy People (favorite song: "Ratts of the Capital")

(5) Bark Psychosis, Codename: Dustsucker (favorite song: "Miss Abuse")

(6) Elbow, Cast of Thousands (favorite song: "Fugitive Motel")

(7) Mum, Finally We Are No One (favorite song: "We Have a Map of the Piano")

(8) Mew, And the Glass Handed Kites (favorite song: "Why Are You Looking Grave?")

(9) M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (favorite song: "Run Into Flowers")

(10) Boards of Canada, Geogaddi (favorite song: "Music Is Math")

(11) Ulrich Schnauss, A Strangely Isolated Place (favorite song: "Blumenthal")

(12) Burial, Untrue (favorite song: "Near Dark")

(13) Hood, Outside Closer (favorite song: "Still Rain Fell")

(14) Ladytron, Witching Hour (favorite song: "Destroy Everything You Touch")

(15) Mahogany, Connectivity! (favorite song: "My Bed Is My Castle")

(16) Cyann & Ben, Sweet Beliefs (favorite song: "Words")

(17) The Knife, Silent Shout (favorite song: "Silent Shout")

(18) Bed, Spacebox (favorite song: "The Wood Bunch")

(19) Blonde Redhead, 23 (favorite song: "Silently")

(20) The National, Alligator (favorite song: "Mr. November")

Posted by scottheim at 11:42 PM | Comments (1)

October 22, 2008

Thirteen Days Away... Vote Obama/Biden!

Once again, a sorta random & scatterbrained blog entry after a long period of silence.

I went home to Kansas for ten days or so, visiting my sister Tamyra (and her new Corgi, Gustav, who is pictured above). I mostly watched a lot of TV with my sis, went to tons of thrift stores and pawn shops, and enjoyed finally seeing my sister's band The Shebangs play live. Photos below, first of the Kansas landscape, then of the Shebangs:

I also took a road trip to Texas (armed with my new TomTom, a 9/26 birthday gift from Michael) to visit my friend John Grant, who's making his album in Denton with the dudes from Midlake and others. John and I and Anna-Lynne Williams (from the band Trespassers William, and one of my favorite singers, who has also interviewed me in the past) drove to Austin for a couple of days (Anna-Lynne and John are pictured below, left), where I hung out with my friends Tim Trentham and Rob Wilson (the former, a friend from my early days in NYC; the latter, a pal from my late-80s KU dorm life, and pictured with me below, right) and finally experienced the legendary "bat bridge." There's lots more to tell, but I'll keep this entry short.

I've also been busy (a) thanks to a big textbook-writing freelance gig I took on... (b) thanks to trying hard to figure out what I want to do with my next novel... and also, more than anything else, (c) thanks to my mental preoccupation, near obsession really, with the upcoming election. I've never been so excited about a potential president/vice-president as I am about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And I've never been so frightened, sickened, ashamed, and disgusted by a political ticket as the McCain/Palin monstrosity.

If I had more time here, I'd write more and more and more about this issue, which is very important to me and to everyone in the country. I'd also post lots more (and mostly lots more serious) clips like the one above that further illustrate the misguided, hate-filled, backward and simply wrong thinking of these Republican beasts. But instead I'll just post one more, the one below, a statement by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. This is a clip that I'd really really like you to watch if you have the time. And please, if you're reading this, if you're here in the US, and oddly are still undecided, do the research and make the right decision on November 4th.

Posted by scottheim at 06:20 PM | Comments (4)