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Silly Hollywood Trash

Posted by Bookmason, 2 years ago

If you are a movie buff, especially of old stuff you probably enjoy this like I did. Read it in the summer, but forgot to post it here. Hasn't stuck with me as well as Pygmy did, just wasn't as much fun. I enjoyed it, but would rate it near the bottom of the Chuck's I have read. That still makes it better then 50% of the fiction out there, but low on my list.

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Suicide Girls and Palahniuk

Posted by Kenneth Mackendrick, 3 years ago

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suicidegirls.com/interviews/Chuck+Palahniuk%3A+Tell-All/

He does an interview with SG every year. See the archives for previous interviews.

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CP in Calgary - his only Canadian stop

Posted by Kenneth Mackendrick, 3 years ago

wordfestblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/behind-the-scenes-chuck-palahniuks-only-stop-in-canada-2/

Behind the Scenes: Chuck Palahniuk’s only stop in Canada
By annenicolepilkey

Where can you go to see a world-famous author drink himself silly on stage, throw inflatable items at the audience, listen to upcoming Sled Island bands and hear a slew of dirty jokes that you pray you will forget before you go to bed that night? A WordFest event of course!....

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Palahniuk Interview re. TELL ALL

Posted by Kenneth Mackendrick, 3 years ago

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www.wirenh.com/Literary/Literary_-_general/Palahniuk_tells_all_201004294074.html

New book, new stories.

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Fresh New Palahniuk

Posted by Kenneth Mackendrick, 3 years ago

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Confession time: I haven't been keeping up with my Palahniuk blog... this looks promising. Confession time: I didn't read all of Pygmy, I stopped after about a chapter or two. I couldn't stomach the prose. This could be promising. Hopefully it picks up on the cadence and ambiance of Invisible Monsters or Survivor...



The plot: The novel will feature Lillian Hellman, a real life playright. Revealed on May 4, 2010

Boy Meets Girl. Boy Gets Girl. Boy Kills Girl.

The hyperactive love child of Page Six and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? caught in a tawdry love triangle with The Fan. Even Kitty Kelly will blush.

Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard –inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond.

Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton—veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity.

Tell-All is funny, subversive, and fascinatingly clever. It’s wild, it’s wicked, it’s bold-faced—it’s vintage Chuck. - Random House

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Catch 22 in the POST 9/11 era!

Posted by Bookmason, 3 years ago

Odell Deefus is the Forrest Gump for the George Bush era. Not that bright, but neither is the government or everyone he bumps into in this angry, funny satrical look at the politics of regilion, terrorism and justice in George Bush's post 9/11 American.

Odell's car breaks down in the wrong place, entering him into a dizzying spin through murder, drug smuggling, Islamic terrorist witch hunts, torture, lawn mowing, hair cutting and more.

Highly recommended to all non-Republicans or right wingers of any sort. A great companion piece to Heller's Catch-22 and almost anything by Chuck.

Krol has another book, "The Dolphin People" that sounds just as odd that I am trying to track down.

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Fight Club at the University of Manitoba (?)

Posted by Kenneth Mackendrick, 3 years ago

ttp://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/01/19/mb-fight-club-university-winnipeg.html

I've been silently collecting stories about Palahniuk for months now... and haven't posted anything since the summer. This seems to warrant a post, since I teach at the University of Manitoba...

If you're wondering why this is happening, flip through the archives here and see where FC latches on to various aspects of modern masculine identity, rites of initiation, popular culture and violence, religious ritual, and so on. It seems to me that FC is actually a dated reference. Wouldn't "Ultimate Fighter" or something like that be a better point of comparison? The film came out over 10 years ago... is it really that contemporary? And where is the romance in all of this? When young men are fighting, where's Marla in all of this? (he asked someone rhetorically).

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