See below for a message I received today from Edward Lifson at Chicago Public Radio. (He posted it as a comment to my Janet Frame post, but I thought you might miss it there.)

Edward’s post reminds me that I’ve been greatly remiss in highlighting WBEZ’s (91.5 FM) book-related programming, and in particular the current series “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” which is part of BEZ’s terrific Eight Forty Eight program. Those of you who read other literary blogs already know that Terry Teachout and Our Girl in Chicago are going to be on the concluding installment of that series at 7 pm CT tomorrow (live webfeed here). (Needless to say, I’ll be watching the Superbowl with my computer on my lap and my headphones streaming BEZ.) But you should also know that the whole series is archived on the CPR website, so you can listen to the program on Writing and Publishing, which Edward refers to below, not to mention the rest of the series, which brings together an extraordinary collection of Chicago’s most prominent artists, writers, and cultural entrepreneurs.

And no, Edward, I’m not OGIC. Though everytime I read one of her posts, I wish I was. Does that count?

Hello Sam,

Best, Edward Lifson

Well, hey, gosh, I guess I can take a joke. A goodly portion of my blog template vanished overnight, meaning that you can no longer navigate to my archive or find my e-mail link. Sorry about that. Until I get it fixed, if you’re looking for something from the past, try Google site search:

site:goldenrulejones.blogspot.com [keyword]

E-mail, as always, goes to goldenrulejones@yahoo.com.

ADDITION 2/1: Archive links and blogroll are back. Still working on the other stuff.

“Shoeboxes of unpublished works by Janet Frame will gather dust till their fate is decided by family and friends,” according to an article in The Dominion Post (NZ).

Frame would have been aware of the interest generated by unpublished work in the event of her death, [Elizabeth Alley, a friend and former Frame literary executor] said. “One has to remember that Janet didn’t publish because she didn’t feel she was writing to the standard she wanted to write to. That was her own judgment.

“When I once said to her, `Why don’t you publish some poetry?’ because I knew she was writing a lot, she said, `Oh, the young are so much better than I am.’ ”

A few snippets from Joe Orton’s stage play Loot (1965), featuring Inspector Truscott of Scotland Yard:

TRUSCOTT (posing as an inspector from the Metropolitan Water Board). There’s more to this than meets the eye. I’m tempted to believe that you did have a hand in the bank job. Yes. I shall inform my superior officer. He will take whatever steps he sees fit. I may be required to make an arrest.

FAY. The Water Board can’t arrest people.

TRUSCOTT. They can in certain circumstances.

FAY. What circumstances?

TRUSCOTT. I’m not prepared to reveal the inner secrets of the Water Board to a member of the general public.

_____

TRUSCOTT (shouting, knocking Hal to the floor). Under any other political system I’d have you on the floor in tears.

HAL (crying). You’ve got me on the floor in tears.

_____

DENNIS. Am I under arrest then?

TRUSCOTT. I wish you were. Unfortunately what you’ve done isn’t illegal.

DENNIS (pause, with surprise). When did they change the law?

TRUSCOTT. There never was any law.

DENNIS. Has it all been a leg-pull? My uncle did two years.

TRUSCOTT. What for?

DENNIS. Armed robbery.

TRUSCOTT. That is against the law.

DENNIS. It used to be.

TRUSCOTT. It still is.

DENNIS. I thought the law had been changed.

TRUSCOTT. Who told you that?

DENNIS. You did.

TRUSCOTT. When?

DENNIS. Just now. I thought there’d been a reappraisal of society’s responsibilities towards the criminal.

TRUSCOTT. You talk like a judge.

DENNIS. I’ve met so many.

TRUSCOTT. I’m not impressed by your fine friends.

_____

TRUSCOTT. Have you never heard of Truscott? The man who tracked down the limbless girl killer? Or was that sensation before your time?

HAL. Who would kill a limbless girl?

TRUSCOTT. She was the killer.

HAL. How did she do it if she was limbless?

TRUSCOTT. I’m not prepared to answer that question to anyone outside the profession. We don’t want a carbon-copy murder on our hands.

_____

TRUSCOTT. It’s for your own good that Authority behaves in this seemingly alarming way.

 

Award-winning poet Ron Silliman was in town last week for a Chicago Poetry Project reading, and has written up an account of his visit on his terrific Silliman’s Blog: A Weblog Focused on Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. (You may have to scroll; it’s dated Jan. 27.) An excerpt:

“So what do you think of Chicago poets, now?” I was asked sometime around midnight on Saturday. A fair question, tho impossible, on the basis of a weekend visit, to answer. I came away with nothing but positive impressions, tho, and wasn’t particularly surprised when one Milwaukee poet who’d come down for the occasion emailed me on Monday to say that “It was the best poetry gathering I think I’ve ever been to, with everyone seeming so open to each other.”

That openness — the absence of any BS factor or visible ego games — was indeed palpable, and something I noted when I did respond to that question. But I wonder, at least in part, if that is a feature specific to Chicago, or rather an index of distance from any “major scene.” Chicago may be a destination city like New York or San Francisco, but I suspect that the motives that bring people to it must be different, so that the “we’re-all-in-this-together” camaraderie approaches the feel one gets in Philadelphia or Tucson.

Sincere or no, the man was raised right. Just the same, no alarming demonstration of good manners on a blog, of all places, could induce me to say this if it wasn’t true: this is a great blog that goes immediately on my “daily diet” list.

Silliman also lists his future readings, which include a St. Marks Poetry Project reading with Michael McClure on Mar. 3 in New York City.

I don’t say this with any amount of pride — honestly I don’t — but until reading this piece in this morning’s Trib, I never for a single moment reflected on the fact that Oprah, with the impact she has had on bookselling in the U.S., resides in the self-same city I purport to cover as a literary blogger. Maybe that’s because, as Alex Kotlowitz says in the article, “In some ways she’s bigger than Chicago. When I have visitors here and we’re driving around the West Side, I point out her studios but each time I’m always a little taken aback. It’s not necessarily something you associate with the city.”

I do appreciate some of her recent book club choices. And I’m glad to learn that her foundation supports programs like Literature for All of Us. But, like Kotlowitz, I think I’ll keep a respectful distance. I think I can do that.

The new NYR is up. As lately, there’s not much literary coverage in this issue, other than a review by Tim Parks of Fleur Jaeggy’s SS Proleterka (full text for subscribers only). For a full review go to Complete Review, which found Jaeggy’s book “Of some interest, but not a success.”

Re non-fiction, the issue includes an interesting exchange between William Dalrymple and Bernard Henri-Lévy, whose book on the murder of Daniel Pearl Dalrymple demolished in the Dec 4 issue.

Weird story by Thomas Bartlett in the Chronical of Higher Education about the writing program at Hollis University, which lost its long-time head Richard Dillard (ex of Annie) over efforts to make the program more profitable. Dillard’s replacement is writer Pinckney Benedict, who, it appears, really has his hands full.

Two writers I’ve added this week to my must-read list: Abdelrahman Munif and David Markson.

Far:

The 18th Annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, March 24-28. Apparently the theme this year is “try and find the literature.”

Farther:

Asia’s biggest book fair, the Taipei International Book Exhibition. Been there.