Seeing Trillin Everywhere

Maybe I've spent too much time with Calvin Trillin's books, but I think Jeff Dunham's dummy Walter looks just like Trillin?

Rudy Bloom @ Mud Luscious

"Rudy Bloom", a derived text sourced from Ulysses, by James Joyce, is up today as part of Mud Luscious #7. This piece is a remembrance of the Bloom's son, Rudy, who died shortly after his birth.

Issue #7 also features new work from Molly Gaudry, David Erlewine, Sean Lovelace, Barry Graham, Jennifer Pieroni, Liz Hall, Peter Berghoef, Sean Ruane, Sara Reihani, P.H. Madore, C.L. Bledsoe, Nathaniel Tower, Ryan W. Bradley, Ravi Mangla, Shome Dasgupta, Zachary C. Bush, Lydia Copeland, Conor Robin Madigan, Peter Scwartz, and a few reviews by editor J.A. Tyler.

Check it out.

One Two Three @ Flatmancrooked

Flatmancrooked is running "One Two Three", a text derived from Ulysses by James Joyce.

This piece tracks Joyce's use of one-, two-, and three-word sentences in the opening three chapters of the novel, The Telemachiad, which precede Bloom's appearance and serve as a brief sequel to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I've fooled around with sentence order but kept the three chapters distinct.

Bloomsday is almost half over! So Check It Out!

Flushed Flung Fluttered @ Keyhole

Keyhole is running a piece called "Flushed Flung Fluttered", a derived text sourced from James Joyce's Ulysses.

The piece tracks Joyce's use of these three little words, which are also common in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and which seem melodramatic and very 19th Century. Happy Bloomsday...

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Square @ Monkeybicycle

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Sqaure" is running at Monkeybicycle this week.

It is a text derived from Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The piece tracks Joyce's use of the square, the primary (perhaps even defining) shape occurring in the novel: circles appear only five times; there is only one mention of the triangle; and the rectangle, four-sided cousin to the square, is not mentioned at all! Yes, the square is certainly an important symbol in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And now you know.

Check it out!

And look for more postings and re-postings to commemorate Bloomsday 2009!

Questionstruck Book Notes @ Largehearted Boy

Largehearted Boy, my favorite lit/music blog, is running a Book Notes playlist for Questionstruck.

In the Book Notes feature, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Some recent authors featured include Norah Labiner, John Wray, Timmy Waldron, Joe Meno, Brian Evenson, Dean Wareham, Kathleen Rooney, and many, many others.

Check it out!

Questionstruck @ Thunk

Interview vs. Ryan Manning over at Thunk.

Question Man at Apostrophe Cast

Reading "Question Man" at Apostrophe Cast. This one is derived from Calvin Trillin's 1998 memoir, Family Man. Check it out.

Win Questionstruck

Orange Alert is giving away two copies of Questionstruck.

Join the Facebook Questionstruck Group OR add Questionstruck to your GoodReads To Read list.

More on the contest at Orange Alert.

Will you enter to win?

What Does TimeOut Chicago Say About Questionstruck

A few good words on Questionstruck at TimeOut Chicago.

Mother's Day

"What if his mother always burned the chocolate chip cookies? Are you talking about my mother? Whose mother do you think I'm talking about? Were those cookies burnt? What do you think all the black stuff was? What are you some kind of nutcase, or what? How do you know I sniffed two dozen?"

- Calvin Trillin, Enough's Enough, 1990

GoodReads Discount for Without Wax

Casperian Books is offering Without Wax at a discounted price to members of GoodReads. For a limited time, you can pickup a copy of Without Wax for $10 from Casperian.

What to Wear During an Orange Alert

Ben Tanzer, author of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine, recently conducted what he called a simultaneous interview with me and Michael FitzGerald (Radiant Days).

Check it out at (one of my favorite blogs) What to Wear During an Orange Alert.

Top Twenty Novellas

At Hitheringthithering Waters, John Madera has compiled many lists of favorite novellas from the likes of Steve Almond, Matt Bell, Blake Butler, Jimmy Chen, Jackie Corley, Nicole Elizabeth, Brian Evenson, Molly Gaudry, Amelia Gray, Michael Kimball, Gary Lutz, Josh Maday, Michael Martone, Cooper Renner, Christine Schutt, and many others. In total, it's a comprehensive reading list of great novellas.

My list is here. I named DeLillo's Pafko at the Wall as my favorite.

NEW WORLD RECORD

Questionstruck has been recognized by The Universal Record Database as the book with the most interrogatives.

This is an important literary achievement. But of course records are made to be broken. The number to beat is 3,883.