By Sean Ferrell

A post about how I will be moderating Evan Mandery's reading tonight in Manhattan.

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:37:06 -0500

I will be moderating Evan Mandery's reading tonight in Manhattan.

March 10, 2010 (7:00pm) TONIGHT! (unless you're not reading this on March 10, 2010).

Barnes & Noble
97 Warren Street
New York, NY

I was thrilled to be asked and terrified to have said yes.

If you're in Manhattan or just like pretending you are, please stop by.

Review: The Prisoner by Thomas M. Disch (at PopMatters)

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:14:50 -0500

My most recent review, of The Prisoner by Thomas M. Disch is live at PopMatters.

A snippet:

Ultimately, Number Six and his attempts to prove that he is not a number are a thinly veiled metaphor for our own attempts to prove the same. I am not a number, I am (to use the phrase repeated throughout the show and in the novel) a free man.
Yet, I am a cell phone. I have to regularly list my social security number on applications. I drag around notes scribbled on the backs of old receipts to remind myself of my bank account number for deposits. God help me if I need to call the companies that provide my cable, gas, or electric service without my identifying number. I am, in fact, a large number of numbers, each one longer than the next, each one more oppressive for my lack of remembering, each one present, and here's the punchline, to make my life easier.

Evan Mandery reading

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:10:58 -0500

The brilliant Evan Mandery has a reading coming up:

March 10, 2010 (7:00pm)

Barnes & Noble
97 Warren Street
New York, NY

He will be reading from his brilliantly funny second novel, First Contact. I loved his first, Dreaming of Gwen Stefani, and think this new novel is ten times as marvelous. Like Evan it is funny and smart and filled with authorial asides. A synopsis:

A satirical joyride in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, First Contact introduces us to the hyper-intelligent Rigelians, who admire Woody Allen movies and Bundt cake, and urge the people of Earth to mend their ways to avoid destruction of their planet. But the president of the United States, a God-fearing, science-doubting fitness fanatic, is skeptical of the evidence presented to him and sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of his young attaché, an alien scam artist, several raccoons, and a scientist who has predicted the end of the universe. Parrot sketch excluded.

If anyone is in New York City and needs a place to crash, Evan's your man. Go to his reading before approaching him about sleeping on his kitchen floor. I will be there. At the reading, not the kitchen floor. It's a too cold and linoleum filled for me. The kitchen, not the reading.

"I read a lot of threads..."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:06:55 -0500

I came down with some sort of horrible stomach virus last night. I'm still not certain I survived. If so, I'm considering hiring a MTA bus driver to run over me. Please don't pity me, pity those who have to live with me. I look and possibly smell so bad that even my dog left the room.

In my attempts to feel better I lugged my hot water bottle and what's left of my body over here to my computer to see if the internet could sooth my ills, or at least make me forget that parts of my body are trying to secede from the union that is me. I was lucky. It worked, because thanks to Wil Wheaton I found this brilliant essay:

I read a lot of threads about being lonely, sad or unhappy in general by alukima.

alukima, a 26 year old with three times that in life experience, breaks down life in a list of simple statements, ways that you can make yourself happy. She's on to something. Check out her essay, and then see if you don't find yourself both nodding in agreement and feeling awestruck at her honesty and self-motivation.

An excerpt:

People who set realistic goals and work towards them succeed.
Have you noticed just how disgustingly poor my understanding of grammar and punctuation is? I never advanced past 8th grade English. Here is something I wrote in g-chat just over a year ago: "I like sam beam better then te decemeris.... i wish thy would tour their going to be in st louis soon. go you wnna go?" That line was sent to a guy I wanted to date. I was trying. I was sober. I am still awful but at least people can understand me. Its very embarrassing but I have to work hard to sound this stupid.

Thank you, alukima.

I came in fourth at a round-table discussion.

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:00:02 -0500

I was honored to be part of a four author round table discussion for Writing.com. The other, far-more-interesting-than-me, participants were Tracy Garrett, Kiersten White, and Natalie Whipple. We were whipped into shape, I mean, moderated by S.M. Blooding.

You can check it out here.

At last, I have an anthem.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:25:23 -0500

Dedicated to Jeff Somers.

(Special thanks to Kari Dell for bringing it to my attention.)

A profile in my hometown paper.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:22:00 -0500

The Daily Star, in Oneonta, New York, was interested in doing a profile of me. I'm excited to discover that it's now available here.

R.I.P. J.D. Salinger

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:48:59 -0500

It was while reading Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction that I realized I wanted to write fiction for a living.

Goodbye, Mr. Salinger.

More later.

Clowns are funny.

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:11:54 -0500

What a person finds funny tells you all you need to know about them.

I find this funny. Very, very, very funny.

I'm still crying as I type this.

Transitions

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:52:48 -0500

My four-year-old son has trouble with transitions. In school and at home moving from one task or activity to another too abruptly causes anxiety, stress and the occasional tantrum. My wife and I try to combat this by preparing him in advance for a change in routine, or upcoming tasks that need to be handled.

"Don't forget, after you finish breakfast, go to your room and pick out your clothes."

"What are we doing after we get dressed? We're going to ride the bus to school."

"Who is picking you up today? Mommy."

From one event to the next we try to maintain consistency. My son likes consistency. Life doesn't. The bus is late and we need to get to the subway. It's raining, which means no outside recess at school. A teacher is sick, so there's a substitute, one he knows and likes, but still he pleads, "Why is he here?"

This morning he was especially slow to move from task to task. We started off early, but by the time we left to catch the bus I was silently praying for patience.

"Please try to walk faster."

I look down and see he's not bending his knees. He's trying out that new robot-walk he's been working on.

"Please come down the stairs normally."

He smiles, takes a one-inch step. "This is how babies do it."

We get to the class; somehow it's still before the class is in full swing. I peel winter layers off him. He walks into the class and I help him find a friend and activity to start in on. He immediately remembers another of his routines that he needs, another habit that helps in his transition from home to school.

"I need to go to the window and wave goodbye to you."

"Of course," I say. First a hug and a kiss, then I'll go out the door and he'll head to the window. From the front steps I will see him. He usually stands there, waving, tears in his eyes. I usually climb down the stairs and turn to find him still waving, then move to the sidewalk and turn to see him still waving. I usually find him still waving every time I look and I smile and I wave and blow kisses.

Usually.

Today I leave through the door and he's in the window, smiling and waving. No tears. And as I'm still in the process of waving myself, he smiles and turns and heads away from the window. I climb down the stairs and turn and check the still empty window, the window I knew to be empty. I check and I stare and I wonder who it is that has trouble with transitions.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Trailer

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:30:31 -0500

What keeps me from working on my writing? Yeah, pretty much this:

Numb, the cover.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:54:09 -0500

My review: The Simpsons: an uncensored unauthorized history by John Ortved

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:53:01 -0500

My review is now up at Popmatters: here.

A preview:

Imagine you are waiting tables at a wedding reception. You wander among the tables, filling glasses and laying down plates of food. You are likely to hear snippets of conversation, most likely about the bride and groom, about their families, about their past, their plans, their future. What you hear will likely be out of context, sometimes probably even incorrect, contradictory. The groom works for a bank. No, he's in real estate. The bride may or may not be done with medical school. An uncle--his, hers, you didn't hear--may be an alcoholic. Or is he just melancholic?
You finish serving the guests. You go home. You think about the newlyweds. Would you say you know them, or learned much about them? Would you even be able to recall from whom you obtained your "facts"?

John Ortved wants your answer to be "yes". He wants this to be your answer because the style in which he has written The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History is "an oral history". In other words, 99 per cent of his book is direct quotes from the people involved. This style of reportage, quote after quote after quote, produces an exhausting book that does little to expand on the idea that (news flash!) television is a collaborative business with massive egos involved.

Muppets perform "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:46:21 -0500

If this doesn't make you smile, then you may not be alive.

My review of "Running Away" at PopMatters.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:32:06 -0500

My review of Running Away by Jean Philippe Toussaint is up at PopMatters. A sample:

In the spirit of Camus and Beckett, Jean-Philippe Toussaint has provided a slice of a character's life so uncanny and deep that to try to boil it down to its essence is nearly impossible: it already has been boiled down. Running Away shaves off just a few days from the unnamed narrator's life, yet it cuts to the root of him, and what is peeled away is pressed to the window where dirty light filters through and we get to see how the colors of it sparkle on the room around us. Toussaint, a brilliant and prize-winning French author, dives deep into how we stretch ourselves thin between places in our attempt to be with one another in this stunning novel.