Jun
3
B. S. Johnson, Holes, Basement
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I have a review of B. S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates in this month’s (June 08) issue of The Believer. It’s either at bookstores now or in the next week or so. I just received my copy of The Believer and it has Zadie Smith’s lecture on the art of fiction which she gave at Columbia, looks interesting. I’m sure I’d either love it or hate it. I’m also looking forward to reading the Gus van Sant interview, as well as the Tom McCarthy interview, as Remainder was one of my favorite novels of last year.
I’m still not completely moved in to the new house. There are problems everywhere. The special-ordered oven wouldn’t fit so we had to re-special order it from Lowe’s. Now there’s a big gaping hole where an oven should be in the kitchen. The bathtub wouldn’t drain properly so the plumber had to break through the tiles to get to the pipes. Now there’s a big gaping hole in the shower wall. My new house is an unintentional Gordon Matta-Clark project.
But in the basement of the house, I found a treasure trove. More later.
(Image: by Gordon Matta-Clark)
UPDATE: speaking of treasure troves - two women from Indiana coming back from a camping trip bought a zebra-striped trunk from a garage sale in Kentucky, back in 2003. Inside were about 200 photos and private letters, which one of the women contemplated throwing away. She took them to a rare documents dealer just to make sure (I bet you she watches Antiques Roadshow like me), and lo and behold, the photos and correspondences turn out to be a bulk of work by the photographer Weegee, whose photograph I used a couple weeks ago in a post. Damn!