Birdbrain

"Chekhov said he wrote as easily as a bird sings. That would be nice. I’m like a bird who's listened to all the other birds singing. Over there, in the next yard (very distant), are the songs I like. For a while I imitated them as best I could, until I figured out my own song, which I am now contentedly singing. Of course, what the bird doesn't know (because it has a birdbrain) is that it isn't just a matter of learning one song. You have to come up with a new song for every book. For now, I've got the song for this book. And that's when it becomes fun. That's why you don't want to finish too quickly. Because the part that's fun comes between the discovery of the song and the singing of the last note. Then you're back to silence, and listening. And that can be a bit rough, especially for an increasingly older bird like me."

Jeffrey Eugenides, from an interview with his editor, Jonathan Galassi

Upcoming Reading: Saturday, July 31

Jim Ruland's venerable Vermin on the Mount reading series is coming to San Diego on Saturday, July 31.

And I'll be one of the night's readers, along with Aaron Burch, Lisa Fugard, Jess Jollett, Amelia Gray, Lindsay Hunter, Enrique Limón and Adam Novy.

The reading will get started at 8 p.m. and will happen at Sushi Performance & Visual Art in downtown San Diego's East Village (390 Eleventh Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101).

More details here.

Should be a great night.

Book Trailers

Are book trailers becoming a standard part of a book's PR campaign?

Sure seems like it.

Here are two that have been getting some attention as of late...

Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story (w/ cameos by Jeffrey Eugenides, Mary Gaitskill, James Franco and more):

And Rick Moody's The Four Fingers of Death:

And an older one for John Wray's Lowboy, featuring Zack Galifianakis:

Black Cab Sessions: Band of Horses

Band of Horses from Black Cab Sessions on Vimeo.

A Calm and Private Joy

"The joy is in the surprise. It can be as small as a felicitous coupling of noun and adjective. Or a whole new scene, or the sudden emergence of an unplanned character who simply grows out of a phrase. Literary criticism, which is bound to pursue meaning, can never really encompass the fact that some things are on the page because they gave the writer pleasure. A writer whose morning is going well, whose sentences are forming well, is experiencing a calm and private joy. This joy itself then liberates a richness of thought that can prompt new surprises. Writers crave these moments, these sessions. If I may quote the second page of Atonement, this is the project's highest point of fulfillment. Nothing else -- cheerful launch party, packed readings, positive reviews -- will come near it for satisfaction."

Ian McEwan

Polar Bears Eat Blood

I'm always amazed at what comes out of my five-year-old son's mouth...

"The Golden Gate Bridge isn't really golden. It's red."

"Superman never dies. When we die we don't move."

"This house is driving me crazy."

"I want a real gun."

"Some people don't wear their penises."

"It's a place where you rip off your booty and get a new one. And there are weapons and shooters."

"I'm never going to die, Mommy. I'm never going to ever die, not even today."

"This song is not cool."

"It's taking too long for me to grow up."

"Mommy, can I have a waterbed?"

"I wish there was an ice cream tree."

"I didn't know I was a boy until I growed up."

"Time really flies. Too fast."

"Polar bears eat blood."

Old Dads

I think of myself as an old dad. I was thirty-eight when my first son Ethan was born; forty-one when twins Henry and Celia were born.

My father was even older -- forty-five -- when I was born. And he died six months before Ethan was born. He never knew his grandchildren. And I never knew my father's father, who died when I was a baby.

I often think: We need to break this family tradition of old dads. We need to break this family tradition of grandchildren not knowing their grandfathers.

***

When my father died, my wife was in the room with him. My pregnant wife and my son -- his grandson. This brings me great comfort.

***

Father's Day is tomorrow. It's always a day that's bittersweet for me. I will look at my children and marvel. And I will think of all that my father has missed, all that I've missed in sharing the experience of fatherhood with him.

***

Toward the end, he wasn't lucid. He tried to get out of bed and we had to restrain him. He was surly. He mumbled. He talked of trips and suitcases (fairly common, the hospice people told us).

This was a time of morphine drops and diapers and waiting. We kept thinking this was it, this was it, he wouldn't make it another day. But then he did.

On one such day I remember sitting with him. His eyes were closed and I wasn't sure if he was asleep or not. I told him that this child (Ethan) would know who he is. I would tell him about his grandfather. I would let him know. I promised this. I touched his skin, which was already starting to feel cold and dead and not of this world.

And I've tried. I will try. I have to try. These are the promises that you keep.