Category Archives: Misc. Wafflings

Spoil the Child

Posted on by

From one of my favorite essays, Geoff Dyer’s “On Being an Only Child”:

My mother often quoted with approval the maxim “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Unfortunately she thought this was intended as exhortation rather than warning. The mother’s instinct to indulge her only child was thereby reinforced by a higher authority. I was so spoiled that on the day my parents unexpectedly came to pick me up at primary school in the middle of the morning—I was about eight at the time—I told the teacher that it was probably because they wanted to buy me a toy. In fact it was to go to Shropshire where my grandmother was dying.

Do you like Huey Lewis and The News?

Posted on by

AmericanPsychoI apologize in advance if the tone of today’s post is a little petulant. There was some kind of terrible bedside misunderstanding between the two cats this morning—cat #1 made a small noise; cat #2 COULD NOT BELIEVE THE SMALL NOISE—and cat #2 decided to release the tension by spinning in daft circles on my face. This seemed to work well as a method of stress relief for cat #2, bless, but my right eyelid is now the right eyelid of someone who has been wearing their crown of thorns at a very jaunty angle. Jerks.

Onwards! Bret Easton Ellis reveals he is ready to start writing fiction again:

The idea to begin a new novel started sometime in January while I was stuck in traffic on the 1-10 merging into Hollywood after I’d spent a week in Palm Springs with the 26-year-old and a friend I’d gone to college with who was now losing her mind.

For the TLDRers, a summary of his post: Deepak Chopra retreat; CW network; phone calls from the production company. Yep, Bret Easton Ellis has been too busy being Californian to write another novel. But after coughing up the script for The Canyons onto the back of an American Apparel receipt, our lad is finally ready for a new challenge…

I jest because I love. Or at least, I quite like. I thought American Psycho was weird and funny and awful and intense and something that will stay with us (“sadly, an American classic,” as some bloke says). It took the vanity and vapidity and excess of the ’80s to its grotesquely logical conclusion. And I had to show I.D. to buy it from the Chartwell Whitcoulls, which was the most exciting moment of my young adult life.

But much of what Ellis has written since then has been more of the same—same day, different drug, now with vampires! I’d imagined him as some shabby, friendless weirdo who had locked himself away in a Vogue-lined chamber in order to write a grand, sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. But not so! In 2010 Ellis told an interviewer:

Patrick Bateman did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand, sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. [That’s me told.] It initiated because of my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void.

For the love of god, man, pull yourself out! You’re that guy who gets excited about hanging out with models while also making fun of and despising the fact that you’re that guy who gets excited about hanging out with models? Fine. So you’re a meta-douchebag. That’s okay: you can tell us modern life is rubbish while standing knee-deep in muck. But you only needed to tell us once; the ickiness of it all has been well and truly grasped, and I don’t think I can drum up much enthusiasm for another round of aren’t-we-terrible-and-pass-the-martinis…

But what do I know? Ellis might be intending to go in a totally different direction. Maybe he’s had a revelation: if this scene is so awful, why am I still here? Maybe he’s going to move to Minnesota and plant zucchini and write a tender memoir about how the smell of damp soil reminds him of his grandmother. Which would be worse? American Psycho Part 6: The SoulCycle Cycle? Or A Vegetable Saved My Life: How I Finally Learned to Stop Giving A Shit About What Goes On At The Chateau Marmont?

Welcome to Malvern Books

Posted on by

We’re glad you stopped by. Malvern Books is a brand spanking new bookstore and community space for literary enthusiasts in Austin, Texas. Our bricks-and-mortar store will open its doors to the public this fall. We’ll specialize in visionary literature and poetry from independent publishers, with a focus on lesser-known and emerging voices the world needs to hear. Our inventory will be lovingly curated and delightfully idiosyncratic, with one common thread running from shelf to shelf: we sell books we love to read and are proud to press enthusiastically into your hands (and this gesture may possibly be accompanied by a bellowing “You must read this!” Don’t say we didn’t warn you.)

As long-time Austinites, we’re also thrilled to be providing a community space for book lovers. We’ll host book and poetry readings and musical performances, and provide a friendly meeting space for book clubs. We won’t sell coffee, because we’re better at books than espresso, but we hope you’ll feel welcome to pull up a seat with your purchased-very nearby mocha latte (securely lidded!) and spend a sunny afternoon or three perusing our titles.

As for the blog, this is the place to come for event listings, special offers, book reviews, small press news, local literary happenings, interviews with writerly types, bookstore gossip, and all the usual literary shenanigans. We’ll be posting regularly—no cobwebs in this here corner of the blogosphere—and with alacrity, so please do stop by often and join in the conversation. We’d love to hear from you. You can also visit us on Facebook, where you can Like us, really Like us.

Plowman cover

And if you’re wondering about the name, Malvern was chosen in honor of the great Medieval poet William Langland and his epic “The Vision of Piers Plowman.” It doesn’t get as much love these days as The Canterbury Tales or the chivalrous (but slightly behead-y) adventures of Sir Gawain, but it’s one of the most significant works of Middle English, and well worth a read if you like that sort of thing, i.e. mad quests, spiritual visions, and a trio of allegorical characters—Dowel (“Do-Well”), Dobet (“Do-Better”), and Dobest (“Do-Best”)—who could teach those wise monkeys a thing or two about proverbial threesomes.