Big Lonesome

HAUTE COUTURE PICTURE SHOW

What do you get when you combine French fashion, yodeling cowboys, and vampires with odd predilections? The Show That Smells, of course!

Even by the standards of the paranormal romances that occupy the top slots of bestseller lists, Derek McCormack's new novel of cursed crooners, murderous fashion designers and homosexual vampires is an exercise in campy excess.

Taking its name from carny speak for a performance that features animal acts, "The Show That Smells" spins off the actual premise of country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers dying young as a result of tuberculosis. Jimmie's wife, Carrie, makes a deal with the devil to save her husband's life, only in McCormack's milieu the devil is the inimitable Parisian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli -- who happens to be a vampire who can be stopped only with liberal doses of Chanel No. 5. "The Show That Smells" is redolent with such high jinks.

Take a whiff of my review of Derek McCormack's strange little novel for the L.A. Times.

HOLD ON TO YOUR, ER, CHOPS?

Hold on to whatever it is your supposed to hold on to while Mutton Bustin', ladies and gents and boys and girls -- it's another round-up!

Indie music afficienados will want to check out these short reviews of the Pennsylvania psychadelic rock band Black Moth Super Rainbow and garage hero extraordinaire Ty Segall in the pages of San Diego City Beat. Coming soon: a review of the new record from one of my favorite performers.

The new issue of the Florida Review has a review of Submersion Journalism, an excellent collection of essays that appeared in Harper's in the 21st century. If you're interested in participatory journalism, then this is a must read. 

FOURTH(S) OF JULY UPDATE

Nothing like those lazy days of summer, right? While I've been busy as ever, I've been slacking off on the updates so here's an overdue update on work that recently went live. But first a note on the photos: they were taken this time last year during a vacation in Ireland. Okay? Okay let's go...

I don't often get a chance to write about sports, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to write something for the lads at Free Darko. While I wouldn't call this piece on Converting Your Significant Other into a Sports Fan an essay per se, I'm not ready accept the label "relationship columnist." Check it out and decide for yourself.

Speaking of relationships, it's usually not a good idea to hack your employer to death with an axe. Of course, it's a bit more forgivable when your employer has shanghaied your ass. Anyway, I wrote a piece of short historical fiction about this conundrum based on a story I read in the National Police Gazette dating back to the late 19th century and the story appears in Dossier, a cool arts and culture magazine out of Brooklyn.

Hollywood is big on remakes; literature not so much. At least until Damion Searl decided to "remake" stories by André Gide, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Yasushi Inoue, Vladimir Nabokov and Tommaso Landolfi. Intrigued? Read the review of Searls's What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going in the Los Angeles Times.

Lastly, a short anecdote about my new favorite work of fiction in translation, Monsieur, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint can be found on the National Book Critics Circle blog Critical Mass.

Enjoy your weekend! Although I wish I was running away to Ireland I'll be spending mine curling up with the new novel from Toussaint, Running Away.