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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: April 2013

Episode 46: Terry Ann Thaxton!

27 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Literature of Florida, Poetry, Shakespeare, The Bible

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Episode 46 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week, I talk to the poet Terry Ann Thaxton,

Terry Ann Thaxton

Plus Madison Bernath reviews 360 Glazed Donut VodkA!

Madison Bernath

Texts Discussed

Getaway Girl

The Terrible Wife

360 Glazed Donut Vodka

15-views-cover-full

Notes

Madison’s review of 360 Glazed Donut Vodka first appeared on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Wikipedia decides that women aren’t “American novelists,” according to this Times story.

I’ll be reading with Philip Deaver, Monica Wendel, and Enid Schumer on May 11th at the Timucua Arts White House.

Functionally Literate

Episode 46 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

A Drunken Odyssey Review: Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, by David Sedaris

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Sedaris, Recommendation

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David Sedaris, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

You might be thinking that at this stage of his career, reviews of any new David Sedaris books are superfluous.  He has his devotees, who might be impervious to any criticism, and if you aren’t already familiar with at least some of his work, then you have somehow missed a fairly ubiquitous vein in the NPR, New Yorker orbit of literary accomplishment.  If you are a serious reader, how could you have missed him?  You are under 22 years old?  Okay.

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

It has been five years since David Sedaris last released a book of essays, When You are Engulfed in Flames.  With its sardonic wit, idiosyncratic areas of curiosity, and personal revelations, this book culminated what was a series of humorous non-fiction collections that included Barrel Fever (1994), Naked (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004).  I had seen Sedaris read from Barrel Fever to a rather confused Miami crowd back when he was promoting his first book; no one knew what to make of his fictional satire about being in a passionate relationship with Mike Tyson.  I was also on hand when he made an appearance at the flagship Barnes and Noble store in New York City’s Union Square; that event brought thousands of people into the store, and it had the air of hysteria I usually associate with a rock concert.

In 2010, however, Sedaris surprised his readers with Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. In this collection of new fables, there were no personal essays.  There were no new stories, or new remembrances of, his large Greek family, especially the exploits of his wild brother, Paul, who is nicknamed the Rooster, or his wickedly unusual sister, the actress Amy Sedaris. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is, in my opinion, an excellent book.  It’s provocative, insightful about human foibles, funny, and does a lot to keep a valuable genre of writing in currency.  But the collection of fables wasn’t nearly as popular as his nonfiction collections.

I forget what first got me seriously interested in Sedaris’s work.  One of his essays, called “Full House,” was featured in one of the textbooks I was teaching from, and somehow I ended up with a copy of the audiobook for the collection the essay was in, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.  Not long afterwards, my family was listening to those CDs, and then I got all of David Sedaris’s audiobooks.  If one of the purposes of literature is to make us less lonely, then Sedaris manages that so deftly, and more so than almost any other writer today, his ability to read his work entertainingly has become entwined with his appeal as a writer.  When you hear his audience laughing at his dry jokes, you have to be in a dire mood not to feel like you are there.  Only Billy Collins comes close to being this important in speaking his writing before live audience.

I’ve just read David Sedaris’s latest book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, which comes out on Tuesday, and it’s the best book he’s written.  What I find so surprising about this book is that when he revisits stories about his family, they feel differently than they did in previous books.  There is more tension in his narratives.  He feels less compelled to always be humorous in these essays—not that the funniness has disappeared—but the seriousness of his tales mingles with the humor in ways that are more evocative than in his previous, superior work.  While the endings of his essays have in the past often been open-ended, merely formal codas rather than dramatic resolutions, the essays in LEDwO also show him growing in his storytelling abilities.  His style is both more subtle and alive than I have ever remembered it.  Here he compares the beach at Normandy to a beaches in Hawaii:

            The water runs from glacial to heart attach and is tinted the color of iced tea.  Then there’s all the stuff floating in it; not man-made garbage but sea garbage—scum and bits of plant life, all of it murky and rotten-smelling.

            The beaches in Hawaii look as if they’ve been bleached; that’s how white the sand is.  The water is warm—even in winter—and so clear you can see not just your toes but the corns cleaving, barnaclelike, to the sides of them.

As if to resist the nonfiction classification of himself as a writer, Sedaris has also interspersed these essays with dramatic monologues meant to be performed as “forensics” by high school students who participate in debate teams.  These are wickedly funny, and satirize the political madness of contemporary America.  I would love to learn if high school students who might try to use these pieces will (1) understand their dramatic irony, (2) be allowed to perform such pieces, and (3) if both would occur at the same time.  It almost makes me want to judge debate competitions.

I am not sure I have challenged anyone’s beliefs about David Sedaris’s merits as an essay writer, except to say that if you already love him, you now have more reason to do so.  If you have never experienced his work, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls is an excellent place to start.

Episode 45: Richard Peabody!

19 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Literary Magazines, Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

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Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Literary Magazines, Literature, Poetry, Writing Podcast

Episode 45 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week, I talk to Richard Peabody, the editor of Gargoyle Magazine,

Richard Peabody

Plus Kirsten Holt reads a beautiful elegy.

Kirtsen Holt

Texts Discussed

Last of the Red Hot Magnetos

Gargoyle 58 cover

great gatsby

On the Road
Daisy Buchanon's Daughter
Devil in the Grove
Notes

The music for Last Call was “Night Flight” by the band Carlton Melton.

Country Ways

The 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winners.

Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s Titus Andronicus runs through April 28.

titus andronicus

TheDrunkenodyssey1

 Episode 45 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 44: Erin Belieu!

14 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Literary Magazines

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Feminism, Literary Magazines, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Writing Podcast

Episode 44 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week, I talk to the poet and VIDA’s co-founder Erin Belieau,

Erin Belieu

Plus Julie Henderson discusses Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always.

Julie Henderson

Texts Discussed

VIDA

Notes

Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s Titus Andronicus runs through April 28.

Titus

Pablo Neruda’s body is being exhumed, after his poetry was last month desecrated by a Kentucky Senator.

Ireland mints a James Joyce coin.  Textual scholars are already at work discrediting the text.

Music for this week’s essay provided by Steven McClurg.

TheDrunkenodyssey2

Episode 44 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 43: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

06 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Music, Poetry

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Cinema, Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Literature, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Shakespeare, Theatre, Writing Podcast

Episode 43 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week, I talk to the poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram,

Lillian Yvonne Bertram

Plus James Best discusses Gatsby.

James Best

Texts Discussed

Carlton Melton’s Photos of Photos.

Photos Of Photos

Notes

Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s Titus Andronicus runs through April 28.

titus andronicus

Music for this week’s essay provided by Carlton Melton.

Daybreak

Princess Parizade

TheDrunkenodyssey1

Grrr: Amazon buys Goodreads.com.

The Tequila Worms have generously offered their album Cantina as a free download.

 Episode 43 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.
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